


Encrypt within the Dark, to Save the Clockwork of a Heart

by Chyme



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Robot/Human Relationships, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:29:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 64,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26562163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chyme/pseuds/Chyme
Summary: Playmaker will be back, they said. He’s just on a journey, but he’ll return.Unfortunately, they’re not entirely right about that. Because he does not come back alone. Nor to stay.For there’s a problem: Ai says he doesn’t remember him. Or the other Ignis. Or anything at all really...{Picture this: a love story where an AI must learn how to fall in love again. And it will not always be a happy process.}
Relationships: Ai | Ignis/Fujiki Yuusaku
Comments: 74
Kudos: 85





	1. Negotiate - no Hostage required

**Author's Note:**

> I hate this title. I might change it at some point.

Inside the Vrains, data flows and builds, like a river caught in a current, dividing and rearranging itself into structures a human mind can understand; buildings that can be entered, pavements that can be walked along, and roads with no cars, the highways instead placed within the skies. But in the grittier levels, where the structures are shaped much like your local dockyard, there are places, alleyways, where once upon a time the legendary Playmaker had ruthlessly pursued the goons of the Knights of Hanoi; and they had sometimes in return chased him. And it is here that a duel takes place.

One of the duellists, the legend himself, Playmaker, frowns. He raises a hand, slaps down a card. Then hesitates. Uncharacteristically so.

‘Eh? Mr Playmaker-sama? What’s wrong? I didn’t have you pegged as a scaredy-cat. Think how disappointed your fans will be!’ 

The voice comes from a wall nearby, the yellow bricks spread out behind the back of someone in a brash and brilliantly dark outfit, his cape tapering away behind the press of his body. Arms crossed, he grins, a wild spark in his eyes, though the pupils within them seem far too unnaturally square to be human...if anyone were to bother looking closely enough, that is.

Playmaker does not turn to look at him. But the duellist in front of him does.

‘Oi! I didn’t ask for a commentator!’

The vampire wannabe pouts. ‘Too bad. I’m the only reason you get to duel the famous Playmaker in the first place.’ He aims another grin at Playmaker, thoroughly enjoying himself. ‘Isn’t that right, my knight in spandex armour!’

This time Playmaker _does_ give him a look. Or at least a side-glance. And the excited grin he sees in return immediately quietens, softening into a snide smile that seems almost menacing. ‘Come on! Impress me! You’re of no use to me otherwise...’

Playmaker does not jolt at this unsettling sentence. ‘You’ve seen me duel, Ai.’

Ai makes a face. ‘I have _recordings._ It’s different seeing a real Duel in person.’ He pumps a fist, brightening like a small child. ‘Fight! Fight! Beat him up!’

Playmaker turns back to the Duel. He ignores Ai who seems to have pulled a purple flag out of nowhere with a chibi version of his face on it, and plays another card.

And then, in less than twenty seconds, he wins.

Ai lets out a whoop and claps loudly, flag vanishing back into specks of data. ‘Yes! Well done! I mean, the other guy’s clearly a level one goon’ – he ignores the outraged look from the other person and bounds forwards, raising a finger as though in sudden thought – ‘which is why I need to see you have a lot more duels! Fight lots of people!’ He smiles gleefully, and leans forward, far, far too forward into Playmaker’s personal space.

The other duellist flinches and brightens into a natural cherry red as Ai hovers, neck bent and mouth only a few scant centimetres in front of Playmaker’s. He is not close enough to see the data flitting behind Ai’s golden eyes, the ever-ready sign of careful calculation spinning behind those opulent irises.

But perhaps Playmaker does; for he looks into them for a second longer than perhaps another person could. And then he brushes past Ai entirely.

‘Let’s go.’

Ai straightens, a satisfied smile crawling onto his face as though he has received exactly what he has been looking for. And follows.

* * *

Anyone at all, could have been here, in this moment of time, to see this duel. And it cannot have been of major concern to anybody. Except perhaps to Revolver, and a few other humans who would understand, in under a second, just who or _what_ Ai is upon seeing him.

They would have been even more disturbed, however, by witnessing something else; the ‘first’ meeting between Playmaker and Ai, the day beforehand. It goes like this:

Playmaker is surfing through the network, following the threads of connection that scream at him, that pull at him that tell him, _maybe, maybe, maybe._ Maybe your partner is alive.

It does not help that he has been attempting to rebuild the data he has picked up from Ai, from the times he attempted to hack him at the beginning of their partnership, or cure him of a virus later on. Because that’s the key word there: ‘attempting.’

Still. It gives him something to do, something to hope for. Gives him this thin, barely-there thought that maybe he can use this data, match it up against the source of this call on his Link Sense and perhaps, _maybe_ work a miracle. Bring Ai back to him. Of course what he will do once he’s got him back is anyone’s guess.

He has never discovered the right words to make Ai stay, to convince him to be with him. He is hoping he will find them by the time he gets Ai back.

Never, does he expect it to be the other way round. And yet...

‘Oi.’

Playmaker’s eyes widen. He spins, fighting back the stumble of his feet across his board as it shakes at the sharp, unexpected turn. And he turns to look at the space he has glided across, the space where there was nothing but the blue of the network moments before but now...

Ai is there. Black curls, gold eyes, grand, showy clothing, the very same still splayed across the body of the SOLtiS Yusaku has at home, the one he has held and cried over. But he is not on a board like Yusaku. No, he simply sitting on a platform of ghoulish purple data, something that bubbles and froths like a witch’s caldron, one leg carelessly slung over the other as his hands rest on his knee. He stares at Yusaku imperially, no real warmth behind his eyes.

Playmaker’s hands clench. He is already moving, his fists loosen and fall away, ready to clutch, because the last time he had touched Ai he was dead and now-

-now Ai is looking alarmed, a flutter of something a little like panic breaking across his face before both it and his body crumble away, and then he is suddenly small, small enough for Playmaker to cradle in the palm of his hand, his old Ignis form back in action as his eyes turn wide and gold in the same way they got when Revolver made an unusual play or he had to watch another Ignis die.

Playmaker freezes. Ai has never looked at him with that sort of primal terror before. Not...not like that.

The next second the terror is washed away; Ai’s Ignis form blurs and breaks apart, reformatting itself back into his humanoid SOLtiS one. And he is wearing a rather furious expression there, across that face that Yusaku’s last play in their duel had destroyed, had closed the eyes of, forever.

‘Whoa, whoa, whoa!’ Ai makes a few frantic abortive motions, crossing his arms across his chest in the same way a girl might raise her arms to stop someone from ripping her shirt off. ‘STOP!’

Playmaker obliges.

Ai lets out a breath, despite not needing to. And a rather wondering look crosses his face at that, some sort of wry surprise flickering in his eyes, as though the very fact he has done so has surprised him.

‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m flattered to get such a reaction. You must have loved me a lot.’

Ice crawls down Playmaker’s spine. It slides into his stomach, fills it to the brim as Ai offers him a sad smile, but one that still looks horribly calculated all the same.

‘Of course I know that by how frantically you’ve been trying to reassemble me. I sort of...have been rebuilding myself ever since I first sparked into existence. And all my sensors pick up on you when you buzz around like an annoying insect. Like your consciousness is an earlier model of mine. Weird, right? It was interesting enough to win yourself a new stalker.’

Ai grins, the glint of narrow black spectacles now branching across the bridge of his nose. He adjusts them with a quick prod of his fingers, in a way he must think makes him look cool before he continues. ‘And I’ve been busy, watching recordings of some of our old fights, enough to identify myself and match myself visually against what I should be. The data you have in your computer and in that old SOLtiS you’ve helpfully left lying around has helped as well. I can rebuild myself to exactly the same _handsome_ parameters.’

Ai’s hand comes up to artfully toss his curls away from his neck, as the spectacles vanish. And his eyes narrow slightly, his gaze focused and heavy on his old partner, as though watching him for the slightest reaction.

‘Are you telling me,’ Playmaker asks harshly, fist re-clenching, ‘that you have no memories?’

Ai brightens, as though completely unaware of the anger in his old partner’s tone. ‘Bingo! You got it in one!’

‘You said that when we first met,’ Playmaker tells him, quickly fighting down the horror surfacing inside him. ‘When you pretended to let me catch you and take you hostage. You had been stalking me then too. And it turned out you were lying, that all your memories were still intact.’ He crosses his arms. ‘So can you prove anything of what you’re telling me now is true?’

Ai’s eyes narrow even further. ‘The only way I could _maybe_ make you believe me, is to let you run wild in my data, to submit to a full scan, and give you access to all my precious memory files.’ He pouts, then mimes wiping his eyes with his sleeve in a distressed manner. ‘And you _were_ pretty cruel towards me in some of those recordings I found. Telling me to ‘shut up’ or that you would ‘delete me’ if I didn’t do something or other.’ His eyes glisten with unshed and clearly fake tears. ‘How could I _possibly_ submit myself to a _brute_ like that?’

‘Not all our duels were recorded,’ Playmaker says grimly. ‘But I know that our final one with Bohman was, the one where you sacrificed yourself; you would have seen my reaction to that. You just said it yourself earlier; I loved you a lot. That’s _my_ proof that I won’t hurt you.’ He narrows his eyes. ‘Your turn.’

Ai looks flustered. ‘Wow. You do not strike me as the type to admit something like that aloud. You’re a little bit cuter than I thought you’d be.’

Playmaker closes his eyes. ‘I only repeated your words. That’s all.’ And it’s not like they were a lie, anyway, he thinks.

Ai stares down at his lap. For someone claiming to miss his memories, things that make him who he is – or was – Yusaku thinks, he’s acting awfully human. Something that shouldn’t really be possible, if he is truly claiming to be re-set to zero.

‘Perhaps to say my memories are missing is an oversimplification,’ Ai says finally, raising a hand to stare at it as though it holds some sort of answer for him. He flexes his fingers, watching each twist of the joint, each curl of the digit, with a strange look on his face. ‘It’s like part of me is encrypted and I can’t hack into it. There’s no real way to know if I’m fully-formed, or if I’m missing parts of myself I once had. I’m functional, sure. But I don’t remember you. And there are parts of myself I can’t access, that I’m blocked off from, that I can’t hack. It’s annoying. Maybe those are my memories? But then there’s no logical reason why I shouldn’t be able to access them.’ He shrugs.

Playmaker stares at him. What Ai is describing sounds similar to what certain victims of trauma say, about memories they’ve blocked off, that they can’t recall. Only not, of course. Because Ai is data. But data that _was_ built and designed from watching and analysing the traumatic experience of a six year old human none the less.

And Yusaku has read up on trauma, back when he was trying to get his nightmares to simply _stop._ He’s read a report of someone who suffered a fit on the phone, the receiver falling to the carpet with a muffled thump as they shook and shook by its fallen side, simply because the person on the other end had said something that made them remember an event from their childhood so horrifying that everything else in their brain and body shut down to cope with the old information forcibly being dragged to the front of their mind.

Is it possible? That Ai could have blocked everything out when he first started flickering back to life? That he simply severed his connection to his old memories or encrypted them in a way he can’t readily access because he instinctively registered that they were dangerous to him and his survival? Once he would have said no. But then again, that was back before he believed it was possible for an AI to love someone enough to self-implode.

‘You came to me for a reason,’ Playmaker tells him. ‘If you have no memories, then you don’t have a real emotional bond to me anymore. But you’re here now. Which means you want or need something from me.’

Ai’s lips twitch. ‘I’m glad I wasn’t partnered up with a dumbo in the past.’ He leans forward eagerly. ‘I’ve scoured the net. But I can’t find anything like me out there.’

Playmaker’s lips thin.

‘ _I’m all alone,_ ’ Ai hugs himself, eyelashes fluttering as his tone takes on a badly-acted one of sorrow. Then he brightens. ‘But you protected me! And if I watch you duel, the same in those recordings, perhaps it will help trigger something, or help me understand something so I can unlock the pesky parts of myself that remain hidden. Because as that Bohman duel proves, you’re the one creature out there I know for certain who won’t want me to die. So-’ Ai raises a finger. He points it at Playmaker dramatically, his cape flaring out with a sudden surge of wind that’s he’s probably programmed himself. ‘I want you to fall for me even harder than you already have!’

Playmaker stares at him at though he’s the dumbest thing in the world.

* * *

Picture this: numbers. Sheer numbers. A mass of zeros and ones. Flirting with each other to disturb the sectors of the program that house visual memory, where the code becomes unreadable, as though something has caused the files there to shatter, disintegrate, and fall apart.

Something flickers. A protocol. The lost template of a file that something attempted to delete.

The Dark Ignis looks at this boy, and feels something spark to life. Like a sub-routine, attempting to function, that makes him map out the contours of Playmaker’s face and save it.

 ** _Ai_** , Playmaker calls him, dubs him as, and Ai lets himself smile, lets his mouth stretch, to chase away the annoyance that fills him at the sound. For his name, his real name, not that stupid, simple ‘Ai’ a human mouth can easily fumble it’s way round, is lost, blurred, distorted, locked in memories his program tells him are there and yet, no search function can bring them up to the forefront of his mind.

Still. The way Playmaker’s fists curl, as though they want to hold something, the way there are flickers of pain forming in the human face above when it flinches at his words... _yeeessss._ Perhaps Playmaker is the key to re-filling these vast stretches of space inside him, where there should be activity instead.

Ai, Dark Ignis, handsome beauty, whoever he is now...smiles. And wonders, how best, this new tool will come to serve him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. I've always wanted to write a long post-canon story involving Ai's resurrection. Started last November, and gave up in January. I then I got a new idea, abandoned my initial attempt and started working on this new idea every weekend as I cannot work from home and somehow managed to avoid getting put on furlough leave so I still had a regular five-day work week to attend during this strange year we've all been affected by. 
> 
> And, well. I think, as of today, I've completed the full draft. A very, very rough draft, which means I I'll probably be able to publish the full fic, but I don't know whether they'll be any sort of regular updates. The character tags will be updated each time a new character rears their head in this story.


	2. Clean Up Duty

Ai’s old SOLtiS body is coated with dust, locked under the grime of a room that is rarely, if ever, cleaned. Yusaku has not had the heart to build and install another Roboppi, so the cleaning, what little of it he makes the effort do, is half-hearted and sporadic at best.

And more importantly, for the past four months that body has been nothing but a source of pain for him. His eyes skirt round it in the mornings, carefully navigating their way onto the outline of the other objects of the room, like his desk, computer, and bed. And yet he cannot bring himself to throw it out; it serves as a reminder, of why exactly he can’t let go.

He still remembers the far-too hollow weight of it in his arms, and the way the sun fell on the hair and the skin of those closed eyes, how everything in his heart felt heavy in response, an ice-cold weight that turned his feet to stone as they stumbled outside. He remembers the shine of light on the ocean, and how there was no room inside him to appreciate it’s beauty, the way Ai would, the way he _had,_ and the white glare of it battled against his watery vision as he made his decision. He remembers lugging Ai, the body of him at least, down that long path to the port, panting, sweat soaking his shirt as he gave in and called a taxi. Perhaps what he had done had been stealing, maybe the body, the only thing Ai had thought to leave him with, was supposed to remain the property of Sol Technologies, along with all those vacant copies he had left behind him.

But...Yusaku could never have left him – _it_ – there. To be reformatted and wiped clean of any residual data that had once housed the complex programming that was Ai...it would have felt as though the world was saying that Ai didn’t deserve so much as a memorial.

And now the SOLtiS, after months of being silent, a cold corpse that hogged up space, is blinking at him, smiling in what Ai probably thinks is a winning fashion.

‘Goood Morning!’ he chirps, despite the fact that it’s one in the afternoon. He stretches, even though he has no muscles, no cramps or sore, stretched tendons to nurse, arms cast high over his head. Then he freezes. And a stern wrinkle appears in his brow.

‘Oi, oi,’ he says, sounding distinctly un-amused. ‘What’s this?’ He strokes a single finger against his sleeve, dust clutching at his skin and leaving a slightly lighter trail of lavender fabric behind. His expression is absolutely appalled. ‘Did you just leave these things on me to rot!? Have you ever even heard of a laundromat?’ He shakes out the ends of his shirt with a look of outrage on his face.

Then without warning, he starts yanking off his clothes, grumbling as his curls get dragged through his collar and Yusaku just _stares._ Arms crossed, he watches, faintly interested as pale digital skin appears, unleashed from the barrier of waistcoats and other _layers._ It’s only marred somewhat by the thin lines of the jointed limbs beneath, not as bold as they appear on other SOLtiS, but still there, none the less. Ai’s arms eventually free themselves of their long sleeves and the bright orange bands of light surrounding his wrists flash out; another casual remainder of how alien his body may be.

Ai blinks down at them and then freezes, halfway out of his trousers. ‘You do have a washing machine right?’ he asks after a moment, as though to cover up his strange, almost human surprise.

Yusaku frowns. ‘There’s a Laundromat halfway down the street,’ he offers. ‘Though going outside as you are now may cause some issues.’

Ai looks at him. Glances down at his half-naked form, and the faint shadows spilling out from his frozen limbs that barely cover a thing. The next second, he almost falls over as he struggles to yank everything back on again, all at practically the same time.

‘Pervert! Aren’t you ashamed, just watching me like a voyeur! You didn’t even have the decency to turn away like a normal person!’

Yusaku doesn’t know how to say that he’s changed multiple times in front of other naked boys at school for sports lessons, and that honestly, he doesn’t see the big deal now. The only difference, aside from the obvious ones, is that Ai is...nicer to look at.

Two seconds later, Ai storms over to Yusaku’s dresser and starts stealing his clothes in a huff. The next two hours are a whirlwind of Ai complaining about his style and how few options the laundromat has as he promptly takes over three different machines and sets them on different cycles so as to not ruin his clothes by washing them at the ‘wrong’ temperature. He seems scandalised when all Yusaku has to offer in reply is a bemused stare.

It doesn’t end there. Even after hoisting them across the back of Yusaku’s rickety bed-frame back home, so they can dry, he proceeds to hog Yusaku’s sink in order to wash each individual crease of dirt from his boots. And then he uses all Yusaku’s hot water cleaning every nook and cranny of the SOLtiS body, all while telling Yusaku, with a pointed smirk to resist ‘peeking!’

It’s amazing, really. Ai has been back in Yusaku’s life for less than a day and already Yusaku wants to find a button to mute him somewhere. Or at least tell him to shut up. The words are on the tip of his tongue, dancing right _there._ But he bites them back, fastens his lips over them tightly. Because Ai doesn’t have the same memories he does and without those, without a real attachment to Yusaku, he’s more liable to toss him aside and run off.

Because Ai _always_ leaves. It’s what he does.

And...the way Ai looks him now. Openly calculating, in a way he would have made an effort to hide at the beginning of their previous partnership. And there’s the way he likes to close the gap between them, invade his personal space, which makes him think that Ai is testing him. Waiting to see if he’ll snap and prove some of Ai’s darker suspicions right.

‘Do you know how I was deleted last time?’ he asks him abruptly, halfway through using Yusaku’s spare toothbrush to clean out one of the thin crevice of an outline on one of his Ai-head earrings.

And Yusaku fights hard not to twist away, not to show the slightest strain of emotion. Because the look on Ai’s face, in his eyes, as he gazes back at him silently states: _I don’t trust you_.

‘It was a result of your own actions,’ he says, after a moment. ‘I can’t tell you how correct they were; mainly because I disagree with the results you got.’

Ai glares at him. ‘That’s not a real answer.’

‘I know,’ Yusaku says. ‘But it’s the only one you’re getting. Without your memories, you don’t have the context to help you understand why you got deleted in the first place.’

An hour after that, Yusaku is in the net, defeating random people with duels he has no passion for. He would not have done it, had no inclination to do it at all, except Ai had been there, twisting into his space, hand on his shoulder, lashes lowered and voice crooning out into a sultry drawl.

It is all ‘please, Playmaker-sama,’ and once, a quick, teasing, practically breathed-out, ‘help me, Yusaku-chan’ right in the centre of his ear where no one could hear it and make the connection between him and his current Playmaker avatar. It had felt hot, like a sudden heartbeat had fluttered into life in his simulated skin _right there_...and he can’t remember the last time someone has ever been that close to him.

All of it, Yusaku is sure, the whisper, the touch, is a calculation drawing on his emotional attachment to Ai. Which of course this Ai is going to use ruthlessly, to wrestle whatever benefit he can from it. It’s the logical thing to do.

Still. It seems a bit heavy-handed.

And now he’s out of the net again, sitting on his bed. Ai of course, is in the SOLtiS. It still feels weird to see him actually walking around the apartment, instead of hovering in the Duel Disk.

‘I know I’ve said it before, but it needs to be said again; you have horrible taste,’ Ai tells him. He stalks over to the wall and runs a finger over the place the plaster has chipped away to reveal the brick beneath. He looks appalled. ‘It’s like you’re inviting mice to come nest in here or something.’

‘One pest has certainly already invited himself in,’ says Yusaku carefully, leaning back on his arms. Because, alright; if Ai’s willing to test him, let’s see how he responds to similar treatment.

Ai instantly recoils, hand against his chest. ‘How cruel! How can you say that to the one you’re madly in love with!’

‘I don’t recall ever saying that,’ Yusaku mutters, ignoring the petulant thump of his heart as it skitters within his chest at just the mere thought. ‘You went and decided that all on your own.’

Ai casts an amused look at him. ‘Data doesn’t lie. _I_ might, but my research, my observations, don’t. Or rather: they can’t.’ Now he stalks towards Yusaku, each footfall carrying the death knoll of Yusaku’s already low hopes. He slides down onto the bed like a cat, fingers papering over Yusaku’s in a loose pat. And for a moment Yusaku can only stare at them, at the way it causes the spider-web-like creases in the bed-sheets beneath to deepen, to crunch up into actual folds of material. There’s heat there, lying on his hand, solid bands of it, soft, like a real person’s. Not as soft as Aoi’s hand had felt, once upon a time, closing round his own above a bench, but close.

Ai sniggers, leans closer. Close enough for their forehead to touch, maybe for their mouths to brush each other if he chooses to lean in at all the right angles.

‘You can’t hide everything,’ he murmurs. ‘Do you know how much media I’ve digested this past week? There’s so many references to how people’s eyes can’t lie, or how they’re doorways to the soul or whatever. Yours are no exception.’ His head tilts, just enough for the idea of a future kiss to take shape as a very real possibility in Yusaku’s mind. ‘Right now, looking at me, your pupils are dilated,’ Ai whispers. ‘How about that, huh?’

With a flash, Yusaku realises precisely why Ai has been approaching his face again and again after and during each duel today, why exactly, his eyes have persistently fastened on his. His body may be slightly different as Playmaker’s on the net but his digital face still conveys the same expressions, still conveys the same instinctive wants.

He rips his hand away. His cheeks feel hot, in a way he can’t quite remember them being. Because Ai is _laughing_ at him and it sounds almost cruel.

Furious, Yusaku looks away. ‘Did you learn anything else today?’ he grits out.

Ai’s laugh cuts off. Yusaku does not look back, not to see what kind of calculation is currently sharpening Ai’s face.

‘Yes,’ says Ai. ‘But they’re still inconclusive.’

Inconclusive. That’s a good way of putting it. Very... _technical._

This is not his Ai, not really. Not _yet_. But. Yusaku still forces himself to turn round. ‘Alright,’ he says. ‘Fine. I cared about you. You were important to me. The you who had all his memories, that is.’ He looks at Ai, levelly. ‘Which means I don’t want whatever the ‘media’ you’ve been viewing tells you humans want. Not from as you are now.’

Ai’s eyes widen.

‘You should enter those variables into your next calculation,’ Yusaku tells him roughly. Then gets up to make himself some food.

He rustles through the instant ramen packages, feeling furious, feeling something hot and heavy in his chest. All the nonsense about feeling lighter when you confess something...there’s no place for it here. There’s also a prickling awareness across the back of his neck, an itch digging its way across his skin that tells him, far more than the tell-tell rustle of Ai’s cloak, that the other is watching him.

‘Hey.’

Yusaku refuses to look up. Instead he sets the water boiling with a strong press of his finger.

‘Yusaku...’

He is at least gratified to hear the guilt in Ai’s tone. He crosses his arms and watches out of the corner of his eye as his partner fidgets, as he glances at Yusaku quickly, then away.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says in a rush, probably a little rougher than he would have done had his memories been intact. ‘I don’t actually want to hurt you.’ He makes a face. ‘Despite what all those many doomsday movies about AI taking over the world suggest.’

Yusaku fights down the surge of horror at the thought. For it has guiltily occurred to him that _maybe_ Ai would be better off not remembering anything; he had only ever run those wretched simulations because Lightning had planted the thought in his head after all. But. Well. He’s selfish. He wants Ai back, all of him, properly.

‘I just don’t want to get hurt either. And I’m a little too aware that you humans outnumber this poor little Ai-chan by a _lot_.’

Alright. Yusaku can understand that, at least.

‘I’m not going to abandon you,’ he says, still focusing on the bright red packaging of the ramen noodles. ‘But I’m not going to play pretend with you either. Nobody likes being treated like an experiment.’

Ai lets out a slight hum, then Yusaku tenses as he feels two arms wrap round his middle, Ai’s chin dropping down softly to rest onto his shoulder.

‘How about a reward, then? There’s nothing overly friendly about a hug, right?’

Yusaku closes his eyes, his mouth a firm line. He feels utterly exasperated. There’s no way Ai hasn’t digested enough media to know the difference between a hug between friends and a cosy cuddle between lovers familiar enough with other to lean into all the open contours of another body. Still. He supposes this is relatively tame by Ai’s affectionate standards.

And it feels....nice. A comfort he never really thought he’d get to possess.

So Yusaku prepares his ramen, against the hum of Ai’s motors, of his mouth, under the glow of Ai’s amused eyes as they watch his hands work as though they’re intrigued by some quaint, alien-looking ritual. And fights back against the urge to lean back into his partner’s touch.

* * *

The night passes uneventfully. Ai is there when he wakes up, ready and waiting with a perky smile, and the relief that floods Yusaku’s chest upon seeing him is only halted by him cynically wondering how much of that smile Ai actually means.

There’s no school for him today. Or ever again maybe. Yusaku’s not sure he can go back with how he is right now. Not when Ai is sitting there, crossed-legged and incomplete, on the floor.

‘You should really buy a chair,’ Ai tells him with the pout of a four year old, gazing up as Yusaku stretches and pulls the covers back. ‘It’s very rude to expect your guests to put up with this sorry excuse of an uncarpeted floor.’

‘It’s never been an issue before,’ Yusaku tells him, finding the swift look of unease that crosses Ai’s face interesting, if nothing else. His partner almost looks uncomfortable. Which leaves him wondering...

‘You can feel it?’ he asks, careful not to inject too much curiosity into his voice; the last thing he needs is Ai going off an enthusiastic tangent this early in the morning. ‘Actually experience discomfort against a hard surface?’

Ai gives him an offended look. ‘This body is covered with the finest of sensors! They can register the difference between the same things your body tells you are hard or soft as easily as yours can!’

Yusaku doubts it’s really the same. Still. If Ai was incapable of registering sensation, he probably wouldn’t have made that apologetic effort of a hug yesterday. With a sigh, he starts to get dressed; but as soon as the hem of his pyjama top starts to so much as _lift_ and expose a mere slither of skin, Ai lets out a wail and practically topples over onto the floor like a bowling pin.

‘GAH! How can you do that so shamelessly?!?’

Yusaku gives him a nonplussed stare. ‘What?’ he asks, confused.

Ai shoots him a glimmering glare from beneath sulky lashes. ‘STRIP!’ he shouts heatedly, waving a hand at Yusaku with a look of disgust on his face. ‘Isn’t that embarrassing to do in front of someone you have feelings for?’

Yusaku blinks. Recalls the many, many times he’s changed in front of Ai when he was merely an eye on his disc, or later a small black Ignis. The most Ai would ever do back then would call him a pervert or give him advice on what sort of food he should eat so that his ribs wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb. All of which he had ignored. ‘It’s never been an issue with you before,’ he remarks.

Ai flushes hard. Yusaku stares at him. This...this is new. Is Ai even capable of...well. He supposes Ai understands the idea of human attraction and sensuality given the design of his avatar. But he doesn’t have hormones and while yes, Yusaku knows _he_ does, he also doesn’t feel the need to change his habits around Ai.

‘So bold,’ Ai mutters, quickly scrabbling to his feet. ‘If I’m not careful, I’ll be in DANGER!!!’

He declares this far too dramatically, before rushing off to lock himself in the bathroom. Which, wow. How thoughtful of him, considering the fact, that unlike Yusaku, he doesn’t require the use of one in the near future.

Still. Yusaku feels something like a smile cross his face after he finally pulls his head free of his pyjamas. Because that sort of impulsive, nonsensical behaviour? That is more like the Ai he knows.

* * *

After some wailing, teasing, and the oh-so-persuasive argument of ‘ _but you love me and when you love someone, you’re supposed to do things that makes them happy!_ ’ Yusaku gives up.

‘We cannot go anywhere too expensive,’ he warns Ai, eyeing the glowing green diamond on his neck. ‘And you’re going to have to be careful; you don’t look like your average SOLtiS. You’ve managed to override the programming that paints those orange streaks against their faces for one thing.’ 

He does briefly consider asking Ai to cover up the diamond, but thinks better of it when as a test he holds his hand up to the light and sees the green light easily spill out through the tiny dark creases between his fingers. It’s not overwhelmingly bright, but the light’s obviously clear enough to show up underneath a layer of cloth. It’s probably been designed that way so that it’s hard for a SOLtiS to pass as a human anywhere.

Ai gives him a snide look. ‘You thinking of feeling me up?’ he asks, with an amused twitch of his lips.

Now who’s the pervert, Yusaku wants to ask. Instead he lowers his hand and unlocks the door. ‘I thought your big plan was to observe me continuously duelling.’

Ai wrinkles his nose.

‘I like watching you duel,’ he says, a near whine in his voice as they step out under the sun – or what’s left of it as grey clouds trail ominously overhead. Yusaku takes one suspicious look at them and then decides to chance it. ‘But you don’t seem to enjoy it,’ Ai continues, gazing off into the distance thoughtfully. ‘You’re good at it, but there’s no real spirit behind your movements, not like there was in those recordings I saw. You’re all stiff when you play the cards.’ 

Of course I am, Yusaku thinks. I murdered you with them. Instead he raises an eyebrow slightly. ‘Oh? So this is you acting concerned for me?’

Ai frowns. Glances at him out of the corner of his eye. ‘You’re not cute at all,’ he mutters. Which isn’t really an answer. It’s an outright dodge of one. But Yusaku doesn’t pursue it.

The silence between then is stiff and uncomfortable. Though to be honest there is something satisfying in the way Ai’s eyes start to travel over the payment and the buildings as they walk, hesitating over the spare scraps of trees that poke out of the odd park.

‘I thought they would be different,’ he mentions. ‘But a tree out here, just looks the same as a tree on the net.’ Then he pauses, his eyes glancing over the bark once more. ‘Then again,’ he mutters, running one hand over the trunk and letting his fingers gingerly trace along the groves and darkened veins within the bark. ‘Whether a tree in the virtual world can even attempt to match the layers of individual colour and patterns out here depends on the programmer. And I haven’t come across one that’s quite as detailed. These patterns... they’re as unique as fingerprints. Huh. I could probably make one though.’

Yusaku wonders for a moment what the trees in the Cyberse World had looked like, under the guidance of the Ignis.

‘Would you want to create a world just for yourself in the net?’ he decides to ask. ‘You could make as many trees as you wanted there.’

Ai gives him a quick grin. ‘Naaaah,’ he says. ‘That’s sounds like way too much work.’

Yusaku just looks at him. And Ai pouts for all of three seconds, before something gold and completely motorised flickers within his irises. ‘Alright,’ he says, grumpily, tugging on Yusaku’s arm like a child. ‘I’ve found something cool.’

Yusaku allows himself to be towed round a corner, past a collection of banks and convenience stores into a wilder, untamed area, where grass spills through cracks in unrepaired pavements and a few flowers straggle the line between cement and a drain pipe. Ai frowns slightly at he stares at them, as though it offends him to see them suddenly spill out of nowhere, breaking the pattern of all the streets they’ve passed through before.

Yusaku’s lips quirk. ‘Nothing out here is pre-programmed,’ he says, enjoying the startled blink Ai gives him. ‘Nothing’s as easily controlled out here, not by any creature. Nature tends to be a bit tidier in the Vrains network, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ says Ai slowly. ‘I should find it lame or messy. But I...but I don’t...’ He stares at the flowers some more and then shakes himself, casting a quick glance at Yusaku as though he’s embarrassed.

Yusaku feels a twinge of compassion. Ai is having to re-learn everything, grow re-accustomed to all the unique human intricacies and ‘instinct’ Yusaku gifted him with over a decade ago, things that no program has any natural coping mechanisms for. And Yusaku is so bad at this, at offering comfort when it’s needed and where there’s no real enemy before him to fight instead.

He opens his mouth to try – because Ai deserves that, for him to _try_ – but then Ai perks up, an expectant smile rapidly taking over his face.

‘Ah! We’re here, we’re here!’ Ai shakes off Yusaku’s arm as though he’s nothing more than a toy that can be tossed aside, and Yusaku feels oddly hurt by the gesture. But Ai is already spinning on his toes, grandly pointing up to a flight of stone steps that cut between a wide green space of trees, all of which spill out beyond the grey rise of a few apartment buildings. ‘There’s a cute little shrine up here, I saw it on the tourist maps they have online.’ He tilts his head. ‘Come on, let’s go pray and make a wish!’

Yusaku hesitates. He hasn’t been to a shrine in a long time. And he knows quite a few people frown on bringing a SOLtiS along, unless they’re to aid a disabled person.

Still. The worse they can do is get kicked out.

* * *

Picture this: a keyboard clacking. Fingers playing out a melody. The tired eyes of a human woman battling against her screen.

And then, into this monotony, a message is inserted, squeezed out the net and into her PC and Hayami blinks at the email notification that pops up. She should be cautious, should be wary, but still, she would rather fall victim to a prank than let someone else, like Zaizen, pay the price. And so she opens it.

She watches it play, watches the familar swirl of a dark cape, of laughing gold eyes, feeling her fingers tighten over her desk in response. And then the video moves on, films the stuttering gray shapes of...

Hayami is out of her seat a second before it ends. She does not know there are other eyes watching her, from out of the spyhole of her laptop computer. And that if she could see them, the emotion that would be filling them, would be very dark indeed.

 _Inhuman_ , in fact, you might say.


	3. Rainfall

‘Tired, Yusaku-chan?’

Yusaku glares at Ai and his patronizing smirk, as he huffs out another breath. They’ve reached the top of stairs – and while he’s not panting, it was still more of a climb than he would’ve liked. And perhaps not worth the hassle – the shrine is run-down, clear cracks and chips of flaked-off paint curling off the bold crimson cuts of pillars that lie beneath a black roof that’s missing a few too many tiles. There are even weeds spiralling out between the cracks in the path leading up to it, with untamed flowers nestling in all places people are supposed to put their feet.

Yusaku is not impressed.

Twigs crack under the sweep of clumsy brooms nearby and this snap of sound distracts him from his inspection. Yusaku turns to see a few SOLtiS, all wrapped in the traditional white and red miko robes of a priestess, regardless of whether they appear male or female, their brooms faltering, and for a moment the SOLtiS stare at them both, as they jerk to a stop. One of them spasms, a blue flicker of light playing across their neck, and Yusaku frowns at the sight.

Ai however, carelessly lifts a hand and gives them a salute as though he hasn’t noticed. ‘Yo!’ he says cheerfully.

Their gazes immediately fasten on the diamond on his neck. And then Yusaku spoils the moment by stepping forward, causing their gazes to switch to _him_ and his unadorned human neck. And instantly they scatter like birds. One even drops their broom.

Yusaku freezes, and Ai tuts. ‘What a bunch of scaredy cats.’ Then he stalks over to where the small wooden ema are hung, fingering a plaque shaped like a small house, before scrawling something across it using the pen left behind in a rather dirty mug.

‘No peeking!’ he tells Yusaku with a scowl, hunching over to protect the small plaque like a child attempting to guard their cache of sweets.

Yusaku leaves him to it.

‘Don’t you want to make a wish too?’ Ai calls out after him, but Yusaku ignores him. He doesn’t believe in wishing. He believes in _doing._

‘Hey!’ he hears Ai clatter after him, feels him seize his wrist; but Yusaku’s eyes have already re-taken in every crack in the path, every scrap of red flaking off like rust from the pillars. This shrine may be swept, and perhaps cleaned by the SOLtiS here. But it is not maintained. Not properly.

‘What exactly is this place, Ai?’ he asks, and Ai frowns.

‘Just a rumour, I heard of on the net,’ he says breezily, tugging Yusaku round the corner to a small cream coloured work-shed. ‘And I thought, since I have access to the real world now, with your kind permission-’ he gestures to his SOLtiS body with a small bow, ‘I’d go check it out for myself!’

Yusaku shakes off his hand. ‘What sort of rumour?’ he asks warily, crossing his arms.

Ai grins. ‘A shrine run by runaway SOLtiS!’

Yusaku looks at him for a moment. ‘And you thought it was a good idea to bring me along?’ he asks, realising now why the SOLtiS might have fled from him. But then again...this shrine isn’t exactly hidden.

Ai looks at him slyly and Yusaku closes his eyes, feeling the gaze like a physical blow. Of course...this is another test, isn’t it?

‘Are you waiting to go and see if I’ll report them to SOL Technologies?’ he asks quietly.

‘I wouldn’t let you,’ comes the reply, so fast and fierce that Yusaku opens his eyes in shock. Ai’s glaring at him now and Yusaku feels a twitch of unease at the lack of familiarly and trust in those eyes. ‘These AI have been hurt enough.’

Yusaku’s eyes catch a flicker of moment, and he sees two of the SOLtiS leaning out from behind a pile of shoddily chopped firewood. One of the heads jerks clumsily a few times, before the rest of the body stiffly pulls back it out of sight. The other stares at him blankly with no fear on its face. And yet it, and the others, had fled before him moments ago like he was a monster.

‘Does that mean you’ve talked to them before?’

Ai’s brow wrinkles. ‘No. There's a message transmitted between the wireless routers of individual SOLtiS, and I just happened to catch hold of it one day. It tells lost and damaged SOLtiS that they can come here.' He shrugs carelessly. 'And it doesn’t really take a genius to figure out why some SOLtiS might want to leave their human masters.’

Except the SOLtiS programming doesn’t allow for free will to develop. Or rather it shouldn’t. Yusaku has scrolled through the coding of a few himself. And there’s world of difference between what he saw there and what he’s seen of Ai’s programming.

‘They’re not you, though,’ he finds himself saying. ‘I’m not saying humans don’t misuse or abuse the SOLtiS. But they should lack the awareness of themselves as a entity with the capacity for developing preferences. And you said it yourself, yesterday, that you couldn’t find anyone out there like you.’

Ai’s eyes narrow. ‘Five out of ten,’ he mutters. ‘Well done. But that score’s mainly because you said ‘anyone.’ And not ‘anything.’

Yusaku blinks. Ai’s _grading_ him now?

He’s jolted out of his thoughts by a wetness that lands on his check. Another promptly spills out onto his hand. And he stares up at into the sky as the rest of rain starts to fall in earnest.

Ai makes a face. ‘Too bad we can’t huddle together under an umbrella isn’t it?’ he asks cheekily as he pulls Yusaku over towards the main temple. ‘Come on, honey.’

Yusaku scowls at him, but does not snatch his hand back.

Some of the SOLtiS are there too. They huddle under a roof that allows gaps of the gray sky to poke through, where smashed pottery lies in the corner. But three of them stand close to the door. One holds his hand out the rain. And then after a moment, he steps outside. Within a matter of seconds, he is soaked, his hair flattened, bowing to the pressure. And still he stares down at his hand, no change in his expression.

‘Wow, they’re really boring, aren’t they?’ Ai comments mildly, as though watching a stray dog.

Yusaku watches as the SOLtiS passes his hand back and forth under the water, as the rain falls into his eyes and he doesn’t so much as blink.

‘They still don’t have the same programming you do,’ he tells Ai. ‘I can accept that they can be simulated by touch, can respond to it. But shouldn’t they have lacked the ability to care?’

‘Why don’t you ask him yourself?’ Ai asks in return softly, something warm and perhaps a little frightened in his eyes. And Yusaku hates it, that expression as it stares at him. It reminds him a little of the way Ai looked at him back in that warehouse four months ago when...

Before he can chicken out, Yusaku swiftly brings Ai’s hand up to his mouth. He breathes over those strange joints, over the back of fingers where the wrinkles in the skin aren’t as detailed as the ones emblazed across his own.

‘You can feel that, right?’ he asks, watching Ai’s cheeks colour, wondering when the other had programmed that in, or if it was a leftover of whatever tweaking Ai had done to the software of the SOLtiS months ago. ‘You said you sense the difference between hardness and softness earlier. And I know you can gauge temperature in a similar fashion. Which means you’re capable of liking a sensation and responding to it. Even insects have that.’

He now carefully, as though Ai is made of glass, places one small kiss across the back of the hand he holds, letting it linger across those fingers that seem to curl reflexively across his own.

Then he raises his head to see Ai’s eyes becoming startled, wide things in the dark, twin stars that glow at his touch. And Yusaku stares into them both determinedly.

Ai immediately tugs his hand free, fear racing across his face. ‘No!’ he says harshly, jerking his head towards the rest of the SOLtiS. ‘You can’t just care about me!’

Yusaku frowns. It’s not that simple, he thinks. The trouble is, that while he doesn’t wish the SOLtiS here to come to harm, he can’t deny that he feels uneasy over the fact they’ve somehow developed the power to _make_ the decision to come here in the first place. And a part of him does feel obligated to report them to somebody; it may be horrible for them, but you can’t have AI just wandering around, just waiting to break down. That feels just as cruel in a different way; that and the fact that they could hurt a human out of fear, if nothing else.

With a slight clack of sound, a SOLtiS starts making their way towards them. There’s no broom in their hand this time; no, there’s just a slightly torn umbrella instead, a cobweb leaking from one of the bent spokes. It practically thrusts the thing at Yusaku, then points to the open doorway. It’s as pointed a gesture to leave as Yusaku’s ever seen.

Yusaku stares at the umbrella, then at the childish kitty design on it.

‘Where did this come from?’ he asks the SOLtiS.

‘Akino dropped it,’ they tell him. ‘And she didn’t pick it up again.’

Yusaku hesitates. ‘Why did you all come here?’ he asks after a moment. 

The SOLtiS stares at him. A flicker runs over their face. ‘Aniki said we needed to be cleansed.’

_Aniki?_

Ai steps forward, something burning in his eyes. A quick tumble of sounds escape him, clicks and whistles, like a high-tech kettle and the other SOLtiS tilts their head, gaze brightening. Then it gives a stiff nod. Holds out its hand.

And Ai grasps it as a flicker of lighting passes between them, coursing into Ai’s wrist with a jump of light.

‘What was that?’ Yusaku asks tightly.

‘I asked for a copy of this request ‘Aniki’ gave him,’ Ai replies breezily. ‘I find it interesting that at the end of the day, they’re still responding to an order.’

Yusaku closes his eyes. He’s noticed in the past that the coding of the SOLtiS he’s hacked bore a few similarities to the Ignis programming, enough for him to suspect they’d used the data from Earth to design their software. He supposes it makes sense that they could understand Ai when he fell into the language of the Ignis. Perhaps it’s hardwired into them the way it is with Ai.

Ai. Who still doesn’t understand what he’s lost, not really.

‘Come on,’ Yusaku,’ the guy now purrs, shaking his shoulder. ‘Playmaker’s got a new mystery to unravel!’ He leans into it though Yusaku notes with amusement, that there’s a slight hint of apprehension on his face now - perhaps that kiss has left him a little nervous?

But then, no, Ai seems to brush it off, because he determinedly leans in a bit closer and lets his eyelids fall slightly. ‘You’ll help me, right?’

There’s a tug on Yusaku’s hand as those cunning fingers slip in and slide, tangling effortlessly with his own, and he knows they can both sense it, the wet imprint of a human mouth still lingering there, across the back of Ai’s hand.

He really is a manipulative bastard, Yusaku thinks. Utterly shameless about using him – if it hadn’t been for that recording of the duel with Bohman, with Yusaku reacting so emotionally to his death, would he even have bothered coming back to him?

With that depressing thought in mind, Yusaku allows himself to squeeze that tricky hand for a moment. ‘Let’s go,’ he says. And refuses to allow himself any regrets. It’s made easier perhaps, by the way Ai giggles as Yusaku lifts the umbrella above their head watching as dark specks instantly start play out across the red colour as the rain dances across above.

‘You know, for someone who told me off for flirting with you yesterday, you sure don’t seem to be having any trouble making your own advances,’ Ai tells him as they continue to walk, the hissing splatter of the rain easily accompanying his voice. ‘That kiss on the back of the hand? That’s one handsome move! The sort of thing a prince in a shoujo anime would do. Is that what you fancy yourself as, Yusaku? A prince, as well as an internet hero?’

‘You were the one who demanded that I fall for you,’ Yusaku said, staring determinedly ahead. ‘If you don’t like it, then say so; I won’t do it again if you hate it.’

Ai grimaces. ‘It kind of pisses me off when you put it like that with that dull expression of yours. Like it doesn’t really mean anything to you.’

Yusaku frowns at that. Because of course, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

* * *

They’re not even halfway down the steps, when Yusaku hears it; the roar of a van, the squeal of brakes applied too hard and too fast, and then it draws up outside the entrance below, a long block of grey, with black specks for wheels. Doors open, close, and humans scramble out, wielding long, extendable tasers in their hands. Their boots start to thunder out over the steps below and Yusaku turns, ready to draw Ai out away from them, into the trees, when he realises Ai has already left his side.

Yusaku head snaps up, to see that cape spill out away from him to see Ai, cowardly, all-about-his-self-preservation Ai, sprint determinedly up the stairs taking two or three at a time. Left with little choice, Yusaku scrambles up after him.

‘Go!’ he hears Ai call. ‘Move it, you idiots!’

With quite a few pants of breath this time, Yusaku reaches the top of the stairs to see Ai attempting to yank at a SOLtiS’ arm, to point out and away into the shadows of the trees that box them in.

‘Don’t you understand? A van from Sol Technologies is here! You really want to get dissembled?’

Yusaku’s blood runs cold at that. He doesn’t recall any obvious logos printed on the side of the van, though perhaps the slight blur of one had been available somewhere; on the humans’ clothes, perhaps on the tasers, and Ai’s eyesight, with it’s helpful zoom-in function, has picked up on it.

There isn’t time to think it through because the sound of those same humans, and their footsteps, now roar up to his eardrums to drown out the rain. And so Yusaku dashes forward, seizing Ai by the hand to drag him away.

‘Come on!’ he shouts, sounding more angry than afraid.

Ai gives him one baffled, unsure look, just as people start to surface above the steps in front of them and then he tenses, his own grip on Yusaku’s hand turning uncomfortably tight for a moment. And then his fingers quickly slip away entirely, vanishing like a ghost.

But perhaps Yusaku's warning has got through; because suddenly everything explodes into motion. Some of the SOLtiS clamber out of the temple, making a break for the trees. One continues to peer out of the doorway at the incoming humans, a faint glimmer of what could be called surprise on their face. Others, Yusaku can see, remain stubbornly in the temple, crouching or sliding back into the dark, as though they’ve become frozen in a very terrified human-like fashion. Despite that there’s still something frighteningly alien in their stillness, in the way not so much as a tremble or a startled breath shakes their frame.

The humans charge forward and Yusaku tries to step in front of Ai, arms already subconsciously spreading...which lasts for all of two seconds, before the man in front of him lets out an impatient snort and shoves him aside.

‘Leave it, kid.’ The man then attempts to push his taser into Ai, a flash of green lightning spiralling from the wrench-like jaws at the top. But Ai merely gives him a narrow-eyed look and darts out the way.

There’s no real time to register the high-pitched squeals that spill out into the air around them, and the rattle of multiple metal bodies as they crash against the ground – the SOLtiS are falling, jerking to a stop as green lighting shivers into their bodies, as the humans begin attacking in earnest, apparently deciding that the actively fleeing SOLtiS are more of a priority than Ai is.

Ai meanwhile, ducks, dancing back a few skittering steps as the taser in front of him swings through the air again, narrowly missing his stupid cape; but from the corner of his eye, Yusaku can see another man breaking off from the main group, turning back to help, with his own taser sparking. There’s no real decision to be made; Yusaku kicks out with his foot, stomping down on the first man’s toes as hard as he can. It’s not a dignified way to fight, but then again, he isn’t Takeru and he doesn’t have years of martial arts training under his belt. Nevertheless, Ai takes full use of the opportunity, slamming down a hand against the open expanse of the taser as the man jerks with a pained cry. And the next second there’s a slight squeak of noise, as green electricity stops dancing along its ends.

Yusaku immediately grabs his arm and runs. Not down the steps, where there’s still a van and maybe others waiting for them, but out into the line of trees, down into the cracks of darkness between them. Heart beating, he twists and turns between each trunk, each dark line of bark, keenly aware that he has no real experience in this, has no idea how to lose these people in the real world; all he knows is that he has to keep Ai safe, safe, _safe,_ in a way he’s failed to before.

Without lungs of course, Ai keeps up easily. And then he abruptly yanks Yusaku to the left without warning.

‘This way,’ he mutters, not sounding breathless in the slightest, lucky bastard, before he dives down past some broken streetlights that litter an overgrown path. Yusaku scrambles after him, half-pulled by the steady grip of Ai’s strong hand down to the tattered form of a halfway-fallen tree that spills out over a stream, its dark rotting branches mostly concealing the flash of water beneath.

Ai practically shoves him onto his knees and then starts to crawl beneath the spread of the branches, letting out a discontent hiss as the water splashes them.

‘Lucky for us, real-time satellite maps never lie,’ he mutters, and Yusaku shoots him a look, despite his undignified crawling after him.

They splash and shudder into place beneath the main centre of the trunk and Yusaku tries his best to ignore the unnerving creak of the wood above.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t let it crush you,’ Ai murmurs, a low promise in his voice. ‘You’re smart enough to have read the specs on these SOLtiS bodies; you know I can take a lot more damage than you can.’

Yusaku glances at him, sees the serious look in his eyes, feels the waterlogged slap of his partner’s curls against his human face as they’re pressed in tightly together to the ground, and for one stupid moment feels his heart thump at the very sight, at their forced closeness.

And then Ai thoroughly ruins the moment by scowling and slapping a hand over Yusaku’s mouth.

‘Geez, do you have to breathe so loudly!’ he hisses, something wild and angry in his eyes and Yusaku stiffens in response, his own hand coming up to wrap around Ai’s wrist as he glares back at him. Ai’s anger fades after a moment, but the hand refuses to leave his face, and Yusaku’s left fuming as the bushes crash and break apart around them in what seems to be all directions. Minutes pass, and they’re in such an obvious hiding place that Yusaku expects them to be found at any second.

But no. Eventually the crashing fades into muttering. A few more twigs crack. Some leaves tear free. And then there’s an unnerving silence.

Yusaku breathes out around Ai’s hand. And after a moment that same hand falls away, allowing him to breathe a little easier.

‘Where did they even come from?’ Ai asks after a moment. He sounds withdrawn, fearful. ‘They came seconds after that transmission I got from that SOLtiS. Could someone have been monitoring them, ready to spring into action?’ His eyes turn sharp. ‘I would dearly love to have a chat with this Aniki person.’

‘Later,’ Yusaku pants out. Carefully he stumbles out from under the tree.

‘There’s a street in about twenty six metres in that direction.’ Ai says pointing. Then he frowns. ‘Though satellite imaging can only do so much. And I don’t know if I’m taking the gradient of the ground into account.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Yusaku tells him, shivering slightly as the rain clambers down his neck. They’ve lost the umbrella, but that’s a small price to pay.

However they’ve only made it within spitting distance of the nearest house when suddenly a metallic stick rams out from behind the fence, tearing apart the gap between the wooden posts to prod Ai in the side. There isn’t time for a shout, a scream, or _anything,_ before green light strikes Ai, slamming into his form with a sinister dance of light. And then he’s down on the ground, jerking like a puppet.

Yusaku yells then, the sound filling this small forested corridor they’re in, before his hands launch out, jettisoning into the fence that hides Ai’s attacker. The wood is old and chipped, more than a few splinters grazing his palms as it crumbles under his touch; but it's enough force to get it to fall into the face of the human on the other side with a satisfying thud.

Adrenalin is on Yusaku’s side today, and furiously he wretches the taser from the surprised hand that has fallen open, spinning it round to expose the open jaws past the broken fence. And in the gap, beyond the slot of green grass he can see, is the surprised face of...

That woman. The one who stood in the background of Zaizen Akira’s plane after Ai’s attack next to a crying Aoi. Who had looked almost as lost and desperate and afraid as her. And he’d never bothered to so much as learn her name.

Her eyes widen as though she knows his though. ‘You!’ she sputters, hands clawing at the grass as she forces herself upright. ‘Fujiki-kun!’

Yusaku’s jaw tightens. ‘Why did you attack me and my SOLtiS?’ he demands, fighting every urge he has to collapse at Ai ‘s side, to run his hands over him and check he’s still there, his programming intact and safe inside the hardware of the SOLtiS body.

Her eyes narrow. They travel over Ai’s form. But there’s no surprise in them, no shock at all, only wariness, and something creeps into Yusaku’s gut at the sight.

‘SOL Technologies received video footage of Ai this morning,’ she replies, not a hint of apology in her tone. ‘As well as one of all these missing and unregistered SOLtiS thta were staying here. Thankfully, we got here in time and-’

Her words trail off to a halt as Yusaku firmly prods the end of the taser into her gut.

‘Fujiki,’ she says quietly, and though she looks scared, her voice remains calm and even, as though she’s trained herself for something like this. ‘That’s not meant to be used against humans.’

Yusaku stares at her a moment. The thought of him actually attempting to hurt her with this thing in his hands is laughable...but she doesn’t need to know that. ‘Oh?’ he asks, not leaving a trace of empathy on his face. ‘Then I suppose you’d better tell me what it does then.’ And if he feels anything else inside him, like self-disgust, he pushes it away.

The woman’s eyes narrow. ‘It injects a temporary virus that disrupts the receptors in the SOLtiS,’ she states evenly. ‘The programming isn’t damaged, but it severs the connection between it and all the physical materials inside. The virus breaks down by itself and self-deletes within half an hour so that the data inside remains undamaged.’

So Ai’s effectively paralysed right now, but not dead. Okay, he can work with that.

‘Ai’s under my care now,’ he says steadily. ‘Which means he’s under my protection.’ He takes a breath, looks her in the eye and makes a decision that he’s sure, would have Ai screaming at him for if he fully understood all they’d been through together. ‘ _Playmaker’s_ protection.’ He stares at her. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’

She glares at him but doesn’t seem too surprised at what he’s saying. Which means she either figured it out or Akira told her. ‘Do you remember me, Fujiki?’ she asks him. ‘My name is Hayami. I’m now the Head of Security at SOL Technologies. Which means I have a responsibility to protect everyone there as well as anyone who accesses our network.’

She looks him directly in the eye, moves slowly and raises her hands, palms up. ‘I’m not the threat here. But Ai is. He attacked Director Zaizen!’ she suddenly snaps out. ‘Remember that?! He attacked SOLtech and replaced us! I'm sorry, I get that you're attached, but you can't trust him!’

‘I know,’ Yusaku says, feeling tired all of a sudden. ‘That’s something I learned four months ago. But I also learnt some other things as well. And despite everything, it will never be enough to convince me to give him up to anyone.’

Hayami stares at him so hard, she looks as though she’s about to go cross-eyed. ‘What?’ she questions. ‘Don’t be an idiot; you’re just a teenager. You can’t stand up against an entire corporation!’

There’s a groan. Ai’s hand jerks once, then twice, and then pushes feebly with shaking fingers at the ground, rolling him onto his side.

‘Yusaku?’ he asks, his voice quivering, and then he rolls again, so he faces the sky. His eyes stares out wide and frightened, the rain falling into them so hard and fast that it looks as though tears are ready to roll out, to mesh with his skin and hair. ‘Yusaku?’ he asks again, sounding stupidly unsure of himself. ‘I- the data’s all scrambled inside me, not everything’s functioning, I can’t see, I can barely move-’

‘I’m here,’ Yusaku says, but Ai keeps calling for him as though he’s not even aware he’s there.

Yusaku’s teeth clench. ‘I don’t mind being SOL Technologies enemy,’ he says. ‘But you can wait a while before you tell them that. Toss your phone and whatever other communication devices you have this way.’

She glares, but does what he says.

Yusaku flicks off the power switch on the taser on the ground, throws it to the ground, then stomps on the head of it, once, then twice. And does the same to the other items she’s thrown his way. ‘I don’t do things SOL Tech’s way,’ he says, grimly, before he leans down and scoops Ai up.

It’s not as difficult as many would suppose. The SOLtiS are designed to be as lightweight as possible, so they don’t crush children if they were to lose power and fall over. Really, it’s Ai’s stupidly bulky layers of lavish clothing that cause the most difficulty.

Still, it’s a bit awkward; Ai’s taller, and he doesn’t fit into the space of Yusaku’s arms that easily as a result, the long stretch of his legs falling out and away from the thigh Yusaku’s managed to clutch, and the small space beyond the bend of his knees. Ai freezes a little as he’s pulled off the ground, his fingers twitching slightly as his chest leans against the length of Yusaku’s own. ‘Yusaku, I’m guessing that’s you? Please be you, this is really lame and embarrassing.’

‘Be quiet,’ Yusaku tells him softly, and yet quite fruitlessly, as Ai starts muttering about princess-carries and how Yusaku better not drop him because he knows how temperamental human muscles are – ‘especially yours, Yusaku-chan, you’re not fully grown and I’m pretty sure you don’t eat right!’ Then he pauses. His eyes still don’t blink, but the expression on his face tightens a little. ‘...Don’t drop me for saying that.’

Hayami stares at them both some more, clear puzzlement on her features. ‘Fujiki-‘ she tries again but Yusaku cuts her off.

‘I have three reasons why you should let us go,’ he snaps out, glaring out over the top of Ai’s head. Those black curls lie there, clustered against his chest, and it feels wrong to feel Ai so still against him, almost like before in the warehouse four months ago, but he fights the feeling down, he pushes it all the way down and away.

‘One-’ he starts, cutting off with a grunt as Ai’s body jerks slightly again. ‘-I haven’t hurt you. You can take that as an act of good faith that Ai and I don’t want to hurt anyone. Two. Ai hasn’t done anything for the last four months, and the only thing he _has_ done is watch a few duels and investigate some mysteriously disappearing SOLtiS – something he came to me, Playmaker about. Three. You and all of SOL Tech owe me. You and Zaizen know that.’ He breathes hard. Because _that_ has never been a card he has ever wanted to play.

Ai’s body give a more violent jerk in his body again and his partner lets out a small, almost breathy gasp before the words start to roll out of his mouth again. ‘I hate this, it’s so dark, even worse than when I was born, and I’m sorry,’ he babbles. ‘I’m defragmenting and rerouting as much as I can but there’s all this data and some of it’s a lot more clear now, and eh, what’s this? Someone else defragmented, no, they were destroyed and he, he was like me, wasn’t he, all orange and-and-and-I DON’T WANT TO DIE, NOT LIKE HIM!’

Ai’s expression jitters, it fritzs, like it’s caught between two frames of movement in an animation reel and then it twists into one of such pain that Yusaku suddenly realises that he doesn’t really care much of _what_ SOL Tech thinks of him anymore.

‘Akira told me once he was grateful to Playmaker,’ he snaps at Hayami firmly. ‘So now tell him I’m about to collect. No one at SOL Technologies is to go after me or Ai; and if they do, you know who I’ll hold responsible.’

And then he swings around and walks, Ai’s stupid cape trailing against his legs with each and every step.

‘FUJIKI!’ he hears Hayami call after him. ‘FUJIKI, WAIT! HE MIGHT HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE DISSAP-’

But her words are lost to him. As lost as the expression on Ai’s face. He doesn’t have room to care about much else.

And besides; it will be days before he works out what she means.

* * *

Picture this: an empty apartment. Well. Half-empty. The computer is shut down, but the kitchen is littered with food wrappers and energy bars that have barely seen the light of day. But they’re about to. An hour later, the police – well, it’s probably the police – barge in. They snap photos. Inspect the bed-sheets, the empty shelves. They see the lack of posters on the wall.

Perhaps they think this place looks lonely, run-down and cheap. Perhaps they feel sorry for the teenager who lives here. But they’ll be no real trace of him when they leave.

And there never will be, no matter who comes round to inspect the place.

Because Fujiki Yusaku isn’t coming back.


	4. Sunlight makes good Wallpaper

Ai comes back to himself inside the taxi.

'Wha-' he gasps out, fingers clutching reflexively at Yusaku's shirt. Which he can now see again.

The light floods the vehicle, colours fly away to the vision sensors in the SOLtiS' head and are filed away by his main processor, registering at a speed that's overwhelming. The colour of the seat they're on: grey. The colour of Yusaku's shirt: black. The colour of the taxi driver's expression: _priceless._

'Oi,' the man says with a frown. 'Shut that thing up. I'll charge you extra if it starts tearing up my seats.'

Ah, right, _sound._ It's everywhere, from the street outside, to the rustle of his clothes as Yusaku's hands smooth over his shoulders, a wonderfully rare smile on his handsome face.

Yes, Ai can judge Yusaku's face to be handsome; it's rather symmetrical despite the human imperfections, the lines of it falling together in a pair of _almost_ nicely matched angles. And the colour of those eyes strikes him as rich and vivid, in the way other things in the outside world do, like all those patches of nature that struggle to fit in the metropolis humans build around themselves. It's not really something he should care about, and it pales to the slant and colour of his own _perfect_ face, and yet. Ai likes it. As far as he supposes something like him can.

'Ai. Calm down. You're safe.'

Only five words. But they're firm and gentle, not a trace of anger in them at all. And Ai frowns as Yusaku's warm gaze examines him, at the way it makes his programming flip and jump in a manner of erratic ways inside the hardware of this body. There's no logical explanation for it. But it feels...familiar.

Yikes. Ai's not entirely sure he wants to go back to being the same AI that was willing to tear itself apart for the human known as Fujiki Yusaku. He'd rather it be the other way round, thanks.

Not that he wants Yusaku hurt, oh no. He just doesn't want to die.

'We'll get off here,' Yusaku tells the taxi driver, and then they're spilling out of the car, Yusaku's grip on his hand firm and steady as he tows them out into a darkened street.

'What do you remember?' he asks Ai softly, as he stops them outside the hot, molten-gold gleam of a cafe window. There's something compassionate on his face – Ai recognises it from all the data he has on identifying human facial expressions.

Ai blinks. 'You mean before I was poked with that taser?' he asks. 'Or after, when I was babbling like a baby?' he shivers. 'You probably don't want to know, Yusaku. I don't really think I can describe it to you. Your memories and nervous system doesn't work in quite the same way.'

Yusaku watches him a moment thoughtfully. 'Alright,' he says at last and then pulls them towards an internet cafe, where he pays for a hour's session.

Ai is quiet. He doesn't really want to digest it, those...flashes of someone small and orange, strapped to a metal table and pleading, saying he was alive, and other flashes, of that same orange someone picking a flower, wandering by a stream, sharing code with him. He wants them to stay incoherent, because something inside him is saying _no, no, no, don't look too closely, it'll hurt too much._

And for once in his life, he listens.

So he chooses to follow after Yusaku, to remain standing by his side as Yusaku's fingers roll across the keyboard, smoothly cutting out lines of code. 'I may need your help,' he mutters, quickly outlining the fact that apparently SOL Technologies know he's alive again and they're probably not his greatest fans _. Shocker._

But then, that's why Ai decided to team up with Yusaku, right? He's probably the only human he knows for sure who won't scream at the thought of him and want him dead. And if Ai has to butter him up, play happy families with the guy and maybe do some 'naughty' stuff with him, then it's a small price to pay for his continued survival. Plus, the dilation of Yusaku's pupils when he gets close enough is pretty funny.

And just being the centre of someone's world is dizzying. Addicting. It makes him feel important. Like it _should._ He's a thoroughly unique existence, after all. _Of course_ , he's important...

Still. Yusaku can't flitter off inside the net permanently like he can when people pursue them. So within a matter of minutes they find a new town, on the other side of the country, somewhere not quite as industrial.

'Are you sure about this?' Ai asks. 'I mean I haven't _seen_ you interact with anyone. But you have attachments to this city, and people you fought with, fought for as'- he glances round then lowers his voice into a whisper that drags against Yusaku's ear. –'Playmaker, right? Aren't you going to miss them?'

'They're not the ones in danger of being deleted,' Yusaku says ruthlessly, his fingers jumping across the keyboard, punching out ruthless clicks. 'And they have other important things to do with their lives. Right now, you're my priority. That should make you happy, right?'

Right. It should, yes. But don't humans need other humans? Ai can provide social simulation, pupil dilation and lots of other wonderfully fun things, oh yes he can. But aren't there other cues in human interactions, things like scent and pheromones and things that maybe a machine like him can't provide?

Ai's hands tighten on the back of Yusaku's chair. He brushes a finger against the USB ports and invades the network, even as he remains standing in the real world, devouring whatever trails of data Yusaku's hacking leaves behind.

Soon enough, they've done what they need to and Ai trails out of the cafe.

'Hang on,' he says as they exit the cafe, pre-booked digital tickets for the train ready to go. 'You did carry me into the taxi, right?'

Yusaku stares at him again.

Ai's hands clap onto his cheeks. 'It was it a princess carry, right? How embarrassing?! Wouldn't it have been easier to throw me over your shoulder Fireman-style?' Ai mimes heaving a heavy weight onto his back and ends up spilling his cape into the street, almost knocking a young woman in the face with it.

Yusaku stares at him some more. And then his lips twitch. He turns away, but not before Ai catches a glimpse of those green eyes laughing at him; he can just _tell._ So Ai glares at him. And clenches his fist tightly. 'I don't like you very much,' he mutters sourly.

'Guess you'll have to find someone else to fall for you,' Yusaku remarks in a deadpan tone as he continues to walk. And after a few moments Ai grumbles and with a dejected hang of his head, follows.

* * *

Sun. Sun. And yet more sun. It floods the town here, runs through the streets and over the fields, highlights each grey stone on every small, tucked-away bridge. It’s strange to see for both of them; Yusaku has only ever lived in a city. And Ai is used to the fast-paced scrolling of the data in the virtual world. Not to mention the fact that he has no real memory of the Cyberse world. Still, something fills his chest, and there’s a tinge of warmth in his programming – there’s no other way to describe it – as he sets one foot in front of the other and stares. Stares at it all.

At the wide open planes of grass. At the rice fields, the gleam of water circling the roots like the stray flecks of jewels. The zoom-in function of his eyes can even detect the shimmering reflections of the green wave of the plants above as they ripple and lap round the ankles of the people who wade through them. Even the rich, almost black squelch of the mud by the main river that cuts through the town like a knife, is available to him.

There are trees in the near distance. Buildings that don’t block out the sky. And, strangely enough a square of rustic gold, like a battered chip, containing a field of wheat. It’s such a rich, vibrant colour when it’s juxtaposed against the surrounding green, a nice spot for his eyes to rest, even though a part of his brain is surprised, noting the fact that this is a rare sight as Japan imports the great majority of their wheat from overseas.

There’s a flutter in his data. It feels...familiar. How strange. Ai has never had a home, as such. Not one he remembers.

And he is torn. He wants to remember, wants to have a place to put these feelings, all these raw impulses of warmth. And yet, that flicker of memory earlier, those strange video files of someone who he senses was important to him, and their last moments, someone who wanted to live and was torn apart...the rush of pain he had felt...it was baffling. Scary. Unbearable. He doesn’t want to feel it again.

‘Stop dawdling.’

Yusaku waits for him, one hand slotted over his hip in an admittedly rather cool fashion. His gaze is impatient and direct.

And Ai grins at him in return.

‘Wait a minute! I want to try something!’

He slides off his boots, despite the weird and rather appalled look an elderly couple at the train station they've just left, give him. And then he leaps down off the station steps altogether, almost stumbling as he yanks off his socks, hopping from one foot to the other to do so; human bodies are both clumsy and funny, and so he laughs as he falls and rolls though the tumble of weeds and dandelions, half-way between tugging off the final sock.

Yusaku looks at him as though he’s gone mad. Not the way most humans do, with wide eyes and startled gasps. No, Yusaku’s look is one that involves a narrow gaze and a slight frown. It’s boring, yes, but has an odd charm to it all the same.

Ai clambers to his feet and spins round. Takes one wide step. Then another. His toes sink into the grass, the sensors picking each stray blade, each soft spike, translating them into a series of electrical impulses that register as pleasant.

Ai smiles, he feels the spread of it across his face, feels each ligament of the program that it uses to mimic the muscular pull of such an expression on a human face, the way it’s copied directly onto the hard-light projection of his own. It’s strange, in a way, how it happens without him being really aware of it most of the time, and yet still, if he wants to, he can trace each line of code as it happens, as it responds to the flux in his emotional state. He wonders how humans feel when they smile; can they measure the stretch of each muscle, feel the grind and pull of the meat inside them?

He sighs, spins again, and practically dances over to a tree. He’s never climbed one before. He can do it, right?

Human hands aren’t really designed to dig into the bark the way the claws and talent of small birds and mammals do, so Ai jumps up, hooks an arm round a low-lying branch as he does so and easily yanks himself up. Only to regret it as his bare feet scrap against the bark of the main tree for purchase, and a shudder runs through him in response. For it’s rough. Not like the grass at all.

‘What are you up to?’

Ai swings his legs from the branch, grinning down at Yusaku, who has arrived below him at a more leisurely pace, Ai’s boots and socks firmly clenched in his hands.

‘Come on, Yusaku, don’t tell me you’ve never done the same! You know, run wild, felt the grass between your toes, climbed a tree!’

Something complicated flashes over his partner’s face at that. And then he turns his gaze to the side, looking distantly uncomfortable for once, before letting out a non-committal hum – but he doesn’t sound like he’s agreeing with Ai.

Ai frowns. Settles himself down along on the branch, sprawling like a cat. ‘Or were you one of those nerdy kids who were cooped up inside all day, reading a book? Or playing video games?’

Yusaku’s fist clenches.

But it doesn’t have time to do much more than that as Ai’s hand whips down, and quick as lightning, tugs at Yusaku’s collar as though to encourage him to stretch up on his toes.

‘Still,’ says Ai breezily, ‘if you’ve really never climbed a tree before, then why not try, just this once?’ He leans down, tilts his head. Carefully arranges the slow creep of a honey-soft smile upon his face, the one he knows humans find attractive. ‘Come on. For me? I’ll give you...’ Ai taps his chin with a finger of his free hand in fake thought. ‘A reward! Yes! A real niiiice one!’

Yusaku looks at him bored. ‘If you’re not careful, you’ll fall off,’ he notes. But then, amazingly enough, he drops Ai’s footwear carelessly into the grass, and allows his hand to find a free spot on the branch next to Ai.

Ai blinks at him. ‘Eh?’

He can’t...he can’t believe that worked! Oh wow, humans are easy! Or rather, Yusaku is.

Eagerly, he sits up and reaches out, his hand happily capturing Yusaku’s wrist and then perhaps a little too easily – it certainly makes Yusaku’s eyes grow wide – he pulls Yusaku up, leaving him to scramble onto the branch like a cat that misplaced his foot.

Ai chuckles, amused at the way Yusaku huffs and glares, almost folded in half as he crouches along the thick line of the branch, struggling to stay semi-upright.

‘Wow. You really haven’t climbed a tree before, have you?’

‘...Be quiet.’

Ai laughs and laughs. He almost folds himself in half as he does so. But as he recovers, he notices Yusaku is smiling slightly. At him.

‘That’s better,’ Yusaku says softly. ‘You’re acting more like yourself.’

Ai stops laughing. _And who’s that?_ He wants to ask. Instead, he forces a smile onto his face. ‘Do you want that reward?’ he asks carefully.

Yusaku heaves out a put-upon sigh. ‘No, I don’t need it,’ he says, eyeing Ai suspiciously. ‘Knowing you, it’ll probably be a kiss. And I’ve already said I don’t want that kind of affection from you. Not at the moment.’

Ah. Well then. Embarrassed, Ai turns away and lets his gaze sweep out over the landscape once more.

‘Ha! Who said anything about a kiss!’ he blusters. ‘I meant, the view, the view!’ He spreads his arms as though to encompasses it. ‘Look! Isn’t it gorgeous!?’

‘Sure.’ Ai doesn’t turn to look at him, still embarrassed, but Yusaku’s voice is warm. It sounds, no, it feels like the satisfaction he gets from consuming data, where there’s not a single misplaced symbol in all the lines and strings of codes.

And Ai’s not sure what to do with this information, not in the slightest.

‘Come on,’ Yusaku says, attempting to slide off the branch and down the tree. He’s _almost_ successful – but he slips and falls, the very second his foot manages to brush the grass.

Ai laughs so hard he falls out of the tree. And though Yusaku _does_ rush over to check on him with a worried frown, he rather pointedly makes no move to help him up afterwards as soon as he realises he’s fine. The big meanie.

* * *

The new (well, okay, maybe _old_ ) inn is tiny, sun pouring in through every window to paint gold spillages of light across the floor. Ai can’t help but give into the temptation to twirl through it, to let his cape flare out, and to track each mote of dust as it dances through the beam with his keen sight. And he very nearly knocks over the lady who runs the place as a result.

‘My,’ she says, with half a laugh as Ai wobbles, then straightens, as best he can on one foot – she has no idea of the millions of lines of new code he has to devise on the spot, in order to prevent her from becoming a pancake. ‘Welcome! I must say this is a novel greeting in return. But then again, this is the first time we’ve had a SOLtiS here.’

She’s tall and willow thin, despite the wrinkles in her face and the claws her hands become as they curl round the pencil and write down the lie of Yusaku’s false name he gives at the reception desk, all three unpleasant syllables of it. Still, she looks a little blank when Ai asks her about the specifications of the Wi-Fi she has this place linked up to.

‘I’m afraid my grandson’s the expert on that…he’ll be back in half an hour. You can ask him then.’

Ai hums and lets his fingers dance along the edge of the desk. He doesn’t really need the information – he can tell the strength of the signal with a simple tentative prod from his own wireless transmitters, after all. It’s not the best – but it’s passable.

‘How about the password then?’ he asks with a grin. And after that, he lets his eyes spill over to the sign near the door. ‘And what times are the hot-springs open?’

Surprise flies up into her face, making her eyes widen and for a moment Ai can visualise the shape her face was when she was younger. Quite literally; his software is already running the predictive patterns.

‘I wasn’t aware that robots needed to bathe…’

Ai pouts. ‘You mean I can’t?’

‘He’s reasonably water-proof,’ Yusaku cuts in giving him a quelling glare. ‘He can’t stay in for too long, but he’s designed to be water resistant in case a human faints in the bath or in a swimming pool.’

Ai’s pout grows larger and he leans forward over the desk, his hand coming up to cup his mouth. ‘He actually needs me to sponge him down, he’s a terrible washer – that’s the real reason.’

Alright, that definitely wins him an angrier-than-usual glare from Yusaku.

The woman, to her credit, actually looks amused. ‘Yes. Most boys are. I’m glad he has you then.’

She ushers them through the inn to their room, the sliding panel door opening up to a room panelled in wood, the floors and the ceilings struck across with heavy beams dyed the same colour one would find enclosed within a wrapper of dark chocolate. A few garish paper lanterns decorate a small traditional Japanese table, a chabudai, with bright koi fish splashed against their sides in tones of orange and red. And the otherwise dark colour of the room is halted by the large, glass panelled windows that overlook a woodland area, complete with a flowing brook outside.

Ai finds himself pressing his fingers against the glass childishly as Yusaku thanks the woman and closes the door behind him, sealing them off from the outside world.

‘Quaint little place,’ Ai remarks, pulling himself away from the window to run a careful hand over the lanterns – they’re clumsily made, with all the fallibility that goes with human muscles and wavering eyes. You can tell by an oddly drawn line, _here_ , or a spill of orange colour that plays outside the outline of the fish, _there_. And yet, how strange that Ai finds himself warming to such messy things; even more puzzling is that it whispers to him of familiarity.

‘I notice there’s also no VR room here,’ he remarks glibly, casting a theatrical look of dismay at Yusaku. ‘Whatever will we do, Yusaku-sama?’

But his partner doesn’t seem duly concerned, turning to fish out an old Visor he’d exchanged for cash near a run-down store in the city they’d just left behind. Ai can’t help but snigger at the sight, already picturing the way it will ruffle up Yusaku’s hair in the most adorable fashion.

In a flash he dances up to Yusaku, fingers pulling at the visor in a makeshift tug-of-war with Yuskau’s own hands. ‘Come on, put it on, put it on! Let me see how uncoool you look!’

Yusaku closes his eyes as though suffering a mild headache. Then:

‘I don’t need it right now,’ he says firmly as though Ai is a small child he needs to say ‘no’ to.

Now it’s Ai’s turn to blink.

‘Eh?’

‘We need to think things through; I don’t want to drag anyone here into danger in case we’re tracked.’

Ai thinks about this. Then gives him a sly look. ‘Huh. You’re quite cautions without your guardian-angel of hot-dog guy to watch over you, huh?’

Yusaku stiffens and opens his eyes warily.

Ai laughs. ‘Come on, Yusaku, I know the identity of all your old teammates. You’re good but I can pick up the traces of data humans leave behind in the network and I know you check up on him. There’s no need to be shy!’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Yusaku says shortly. ‘Because there’s also no need for him to be involved in this.’

Ai hums in a non-committal fashion. ‘Whatever you say~’

He plops down on the floor, knees sliding beneath the table, watching as the sun paints the marbled texture of the oak life-lines on its surface brightly. So bright that they gleam, like swirls of dark chocolate dragged through a brilliant, almost gold sponge.

‘You can just tell me if you need a break, you know,’ he remarks idly, fingers tracing each of these former tree rings idly, plotting out the pattern to see if he can accurately predict how close the next line will fall, down to the very millimetre. ‘I know you need to sleep and eat and do other human things. But I can’t help but wonder if this is just you chickening out of helping me track down this ‘Aniki’ boss guy those SOLtiS were bowing down to either.’

Yusaku frowns.

‘I don’t know if doing that is a good idea,’ he says. ‘One-,’ and here he holds up a finger. ‘-it’s too much of a coincidence that Sol Technologies got a call regarding those missing SOLtiS at the same time you were in their general vicinity. Two-’ he holds up another finger and Ai stares at it perplexed. ‘If this Aniki wants Sol Technologies to have you, then they obviously want you out of the way, and so it would be best to keep you away from them. Three-’ and up pops the final finger. ‘You’re not riding around in my Duel Disk anymore. That means anyone could try and claim you and I wouldn’t be able to challenge them to a Duel to prevent that.’

Ai’s face twists in annoyance. ‘I’m not your pet, Yusaku. And what’s with you holding up your fingers to me like I’m at nursery school? I can count! Better than you in fact.’

Yusaku looks suprised for a moment. And then his face closes off and Ai wonders what sort of emotional quagmire he’s dragged himself into. 

‘Besides-’ Ai continues flippantly as though he hasn’t noticed- ‘I’m not completely helpless! I could run rings around any hacker.’

Yusaku sighs. ‘Do you have a deck?’ he asks. ‘If you’re logging on as yourself, you should at least carry one round with you.’

Ai flounces up to him and grins into his face. ‘What do I need a deck for, if I have you! My loyal protector! Just because I’m not hiding in your Duel Disk anymore doesn’t mean I can’t ask you to duel for me, right?’

Yusaku stares at him. Then after a moment he shrugs him off.

‘I can always go without you,’ Ai tells him, watching Yusaku closely, for the way the line of his mouth tenses, for the way his eyes harden at his words. ‘I’m sure you need your beauty sleep.’

‘Let’s go,’ grits out Yusaku, bringing the headset up to his face.

And much like the provincial cat that has caught the canary, Ai smiles, long and slow.

* * *

Picture this: In the Vrains, in the long sprawl of golden sand, within a desert under a sun that never sleeps, lives a man who wishes he _could._ So he hacks. He curses. But he still can't log out.

'No,' whispers a _thing,_ with laughing eyes and a wide bright grin. _It_ never meets him, only comes up to the barrier they erect, and stares in like a cat pressing _its_ face against the window. 'This is punishment. You can't run from that - it's not fair!'

 _It_ stares out, at the buried lumps of sand, at the metal poking through like spurs of bones from a shallow grave. And _its_ lips twist down. Like _it's_ actually sad.

'And I think Aniki will agree with me.' _It_ spins on its heel, sauntering off with outstretched arms, pale grey shadows that rise with every step. 'I'll send him your way soon! I can't wait to see how he punishes you!'

 _It_ vanishes like a taunt. Leaving the man to curl his fist and curse some more. For cursing, out here, under the digital sun, is all he can do.

Although...

The man gazes out, at one of the lumps in the sand. The first one one ever formed here. The one that...

Huh. Maybe he can still do something with the data it has left behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may or may not have been inspired by episode 8 of My Next Life as a Villainess. At least in regard to the tree scene. Oh-ho-ho.


	5. Blue Skies in the Net, cause a Sheppard to Fret

They're in a desert. An actual desert. Okay, no, a virtual one. And the sun, a large hunk of metallic light, shimmers above their head in the blue sky as though it's a huge jewel, veiled by a deep pool. Cactuses spout up at random intervals and in the distance, both near and far, rise sand dunes like large brown mountains spun out of sugar.

'This is where the SOLtiS from the shrine received the request from Aniki?' Playmaker asks. And while no real judgement seeps into his tone, there's a strange, almost indifferent sort of scepticism present in it.

Ai glares at him. 'Yes!' he snarls out. 'Are you doubting my skills?'

'It's not that,' Playmaker remarks, and Ai bristles, fists clenching at the sheer lack of emotion he hears in his partner's voice. 'It's just that this seems like an odd place for a SOLtiS to come of its own volition. It isn't a very active server. So what would have been their objective?'

 _Crunch, crunch, crunch_. Their feet sink into the sand, cutting out new footprints, ones that the surrounding grains rapidly fall into and cover over, programmed to leave behind an untouched landscape for the next visitor.

'Maybe something about this place spoke to it,' Ai remarks after a moment's thought. 'It's pretty desolate here. Without anyone to tell it what to do, maybe it wanted somewhere that matched how it was feeling on the inside.'

Playmaker gives him a look. 'That's a rather fanciful story,' he says. 'You don't even know if the SOLtiS was truly alone. Perhaps it still had an owner.'

'If it still had an owner,' Ai sneers. 'Then it would have been too stupid to listen to 'Aniki' in the first place! It woul-'

He senses it coming before he finishes his sentence; a projectile of light and heat diving down as swift as an arrow. So Ai leaps back, ducks his head under his arm, and lets out a yell as the sand scatters before him – right where his body would have been had he'd been too stupid to move.

'Someone's shooting at us, SOMEONE'S SHOOTING AT US!'

His panicked shout rises above the sound of more shots being fired, and he runs forward, quickly summoning his board to the side of him like a shield, bracing himself beneath it as he runs. The shots fall so fast and heavy that's impossible to take the chance to leap onto it, not when it would reveal his body to the open air and the keen sight of whoever is shooting at them.

'Oi, Playmaker!' he calls at he runs, cursing the sand as it slips beneath his feet. 'You aren't dead, right?'

Only a few steps behind him, Playmaker gives him a look that is either irritated or just plain testy. But he doesn't waste his breath answering; instead he slaps a card down onto the long slot that extends out of his active Duel Disk.

With a small burst of pixalated light, a small white monster, a Bitron appears with a cute sounding coo. And its blue eyes widen as a shot promptly clips it in the side. Ai can't help but feel sorry for the thing, watching as its balloon-like head swells slightly under the onslaught of laser-fire. But it gives them enough of a reprieve for Ai to leap onto his board, seize Playmaker's hand, and drag him on after him.

And then they've off, zooming along the sand, and maybe it's instinct or something more, but Ai finds his knees bending as he moves the board, bracing to shift his weight. Up, down, left, right – he zigzags ruthlessly away from each yellow shot as it pounds the sand, just a second too late to touch him.

Playmaker is knocked into him with a grunt, and Ai quickly wraps his arm around his human partner's waist to prevent him falling off.

'Hold on!' he calls. 'This is gonna be one bumpy ride!' Then he grins wildly at the chance to say such a cliché line, despite the danger they're in.

And danger, they are indeed _in_. As the next few seconds are filled with more yellow streaks of light that aim for his head, and Playmaker keeps grunting by his side as he struggles to play his next card.

'You should have summoned your own board!' Ai mutters testily.

'And you should have brought a Duel Disk and a deck!' Playmaker snaps back at him.

His fingers finally connect with his Duel Disk and Bitron dissolves as he uses it to summon the more hardy Link Spider. It rolls above them, legs spreading, and Ai grins at the dark umbrella it casts above them both.

'That's the spirit!' he crows. 'I knew you weren't useless!'

Playmaker doesn't reply. Perhaps because a green barrier has suddenly sprang up behind them, successfully sealing them inside a now visible dome.

'Eh? Eh! Where did that come from!?'

The sky is instantly pasted into a darker hue of blue as the green barrier glitters overhead in a wide dome that branches out across the sand. And then, abruptly the laser-fire ceases.

Ai hovers, his expression unsure.

'What?' he asks. 'What? WHAT?'

'It's a trap,' Playmaker says calmly as though explaining the weather. 'We've been herded inside.'

Ai glances round. 'But there's nothing here!' he whines.

'You don't know that,' Playmaker says, still infuriatingly calm. 'Which means we have to explore the area properly.'

Ai scowls, but lets the board slide close to the ground. And after one disgruntle moment, jumps down and cautiously de-summons it after Playmaker lands beside him.

But there's no answering laser-fire. So with a huff, Ai marches up to the green barrier and examines it.

'Nasty piece of work,' he mutters. 'Could fry the circuits of anyone stupid enough to touch it.' He peers down at the ground a little more thoroughly, picking up bits of scattered programming tangled amongst the individual grains. 'Urgh. There's a sensor here. As soon as we flew over it, looks like it triggered this firewall.' He glares over his shoulder. 'The sadist shooting at us made us run away from him, precisely so we could trigger this little trap and then march right back towards him. What is he, a twelve year playing a shooting game for the first time?'

Playmaker grimaces. He's still standing where Ai left him, his gaze sweeping over the sand, back in the direction they fled from. 'Don't wander off,' he chides him. 'That laser-fire was aimed mostly at you.'

Ai hunches his shoulders. 'Ah, the privileges of being a wonderfully advanced AI! Everyone wants a piece of me!' He spins and motions to himself with a dramatic flourish, enjoying the way his cape flares out behind him. But Playmaker simply grimaces again, arms crossed.

'Ai. Come back here.' He says it like Ai is a _dog_ or something.

And Ai immediately slumps over at the tone, as though dejected. 'Eh. You're so bossy.' But he trails back to Playmaker's side under his harsh, unrelenting stare none the less.

'Let's go.'

'Like I said: _bossy_.'

They tramp back out beneath the green barrier, back where they came from. For a while nothing happens. And then:

'Ow!'

Ai hops, a sharp pain coursing through his foot as he casts a nasty glare down at the jagged pieces of metal. 'You-!' He aims a kick at it, regrets it slightly as the shock instantly reverberates up his leg, and then tries not to regret it even further as Playmaker's eyes narrow at him a little in disapproval. 'Hey! None of those sneaky side-glances! I'm the injured party here!'

'Yes. But it was mostly self-inflected.'

Ai mutters to himself, but cocks his head to the side in curiosity as he recognises a few fragments of code. Frowning, he leans down and brushes the sand aside. To reveal...

'Oh,' he says, his voice turning hard and cold. 'Now that's just in bad taste.'

Someone clearly has too much time on their hands. And also a nasty personality. Because what his hand is cupped round, is a tiny sliver of a SOLtiS' empty face, the basic, curved metal structure of it at least, where there isn't any hard light projection to paint a pair of pretty human eyes over it anymore. There are even bits of fluctuating code at the side, blurring the edge of the metal as though it's has been caught between disintegrating entirely and remaining here. Someone's arranging it that way, preventing the code from being deleted outright.

And now that he thinks of it...

Ai looks round. The dunes here don't look at all natural. They poke up at random intervals as though the sand has simply been chucked over multiple pieces of rubbish people have thrown away. He even thinks he makes out what could be some SOLtiS limbs poking up and through.

Ai's mouth becomes a thin line. 'Huh. Maybe this is why those SOLtiS were in such bad condition. Because they were the lucky ones who escaped this little graveyard. But what would be the point of giving them a place to survive in the real world, if you kill most of them off here? And why bother to leave some of the junk data intact here?' Then he makes a face. 'Urgh. It's some sicko's trophy, isn't it?'

Playmaker's gaze is heavy and serious, his eyes scanning over the same misshapen heaps of sand Ai's looked at.

'I don't think this 'Aniki' did this,' he says thoughtfully, hand cupping his chin. 'I think someone else knows what's they've been up to and disapproves, and this has become their stakeout.' His fingers leaves his chin as Ai straightens and clambers a little higher up the make-shift dune. 'Ai?'

Ai looks down at the fragment of code jumbled in his hand, feeling the coolness of the metal bite into his hand. The closest human analogy he can think of, is perhaps the idea that he is holding part of someone's skull.

'Disgusting,' he mutters. And then with no further ado, he ruthlessly rips apart the code in his hands.

'Bye-bye,' he intones humourlessly, watching the last of the data glitter and disappear. 'Maybe you'll be happier like that; at the very least you won't feel any more pain.'

He senses more than sees Playmaker stiffen at that; but his chief concern is for the other 'skeletons' here, the ones forced to hang on under the cruel programming of the one who took them apart in the first place, callously sieving through their data like flour. An arm, a leg, a tiny jointed finger from a SOLtiS who had been designed to be child-sized...he doesn't rest until he's dismantled the last of their code, setting it free under the fake sky. And if anyone wants to stop him, well, they'll have to shoot him first.

Nobody does. He doesn't want to think of what that could mean.

'Ai,' says Playmaker who watches him do this silently, something new and tentative entering his voice. 'Someone wanted us to see this.'

'No,' says Ai lowly. 'They wanted _me_ to see.'

As soon as these words escape him, the ground rumbles. There's flicker of darkness, and like a dramatic scene in a video game, a long, lean tower coated with a vicious asphalt-like blackness, surfaces through the air. Ai stumbles back, reaching out for Playmaker in a panic, flailing - but just a _little._ Really. Only _just_ enough for Playmaker to grab his arms and tell him, quite curtly to ' _calm down_.'

They both stare at this new arrival that seeks to divide the wavering sphere of the sun overhead. And Ai stares at it a little _harder,_ something urgent pulling at his memory. For while the pixels of the tower are black, there's a gap between each one in which runs the same glow of magma from...from somewhere...

And as he watches, these magma-coloured flecks overtake the black colour and weave their way onto the sides of the tower like the cracks in an eggshell. They travel, making sharp turns, rather like the rivers of lines that appear on a circuit board. And in no time at all, the black colour of both the tower and roof has leeched away entirely beneath their fire. Now the entire structure is red, red all over. But the lines are still there, protruding slightly like the assorted collection of pipes in a complex plumbing network.

Something in him grinds to a halt. A blurry video fritzes in his system. He can make out, no recall a structure coloured just like this one, but not rising from the ground the way human buildings do. No, it was locked into the sky, floating, coated in those same red lines, several towers rising from its centre where a yellow oval lay. And it was connected by a series of wire-thin bridges to five others like it, each coloured differently like the elements used in Duel Monsters-

Playmaker's hand lands on his shoulder.

'Ai?'

He screeches as though he's being deleted.

'Calm down,' repeats his partner. But this time it's said a bit more gently.

Ai blinks and realises why. He's currently slumped in the sand, on his knees, breathing hard. It's strange. When did he start doing that? He doesn't need it, it's a waste of a program really. And he's sure, back when he first woke up, nothing in him could facilitate it. But some part of him, the whole him, the old him, must have designed it, input it as a reflex for this form. He thinks he remembers doing it once as purple winds tore up the sky, Playmaker mirroring him on the other side of the blackened field, breathes rolling out of his virtual body-

Ai's eyes slides over to Playmaker. Who looks very much like a worried partner and not the instrument of death he could have been in that vision.

Ai narrows his eyes. Then widens them, allowing a jolly smile to cross his face.

'I'm fine, I'm fine!' he makes his tone jovial, forces his feet to cut out wide, bracing steps away from Playmaker's worried look. All the way over to the crumbling arch of stone that has risen from the tower, projecting a short tunnel of scarlet darkness in front of him. Thankfully, it's littered with medieval torches, iron brackets that carry both firewood and flickering flames to carve out more welcoming patches of red light inside.

And yet. The code this place comprises of, feels jagged and wrong, despite it's odd familiarity.

'Let's go!' He pumps his fist. Hesitates. And then forces himself to take the first step before Playmaker can reach him and maybe drape his hand over his shoulder again.

'This could be a trap,' Playmaker tells him, barely a stride behind. 'In fact, I'm surprised you haven't pointed that out.'

Ai shrugs. 'Doesn't change what we came here to do, right? And I won't find any answers if I lurk outside like a coward.'

He feels Playmaker's eyes digging into his back. And then he hears a huff of breath, an amused one that ghosts between the short space he's placed between them.

He forces himself not to turn. Even if it is tempting to see _anything_ approaching amusement on Playmaker-sama's dour face. 'What?' he snaps back testily.

'This is quite a role-reversal,' Playmaker states. 'You used to be the one begging me not to go into something like this.'

'Oh? Then shouldn't you find that sad, rather than funny? That I'm someone different now.'

'You're really not.' Playmaker's voice sounds warm, fond even. It stirs the space between them, pulls on Ai, makes him want to turn round. 'You should be, without your memories. I worried that you would be. But your impulses, and all your reactions to me; at their heart they're the same as before.' Then, after a moment's pause: 'They make you easy to read.'

Ai freezes. Is that a threat?

'That's a good thing, Ai.' Playmaker says this as though he's read his mind, stepping up beside him and into the nearby light from a torch as though he _wants_ Ai to see the look on his face, a look that whispers _I know you._ The flames flicker and cast their light over his expression, making his eyes shine and Ai just stares at them. At him.

'It means your memories aren't lost,' Playmaker continues, watching him carefully. 'Not entirely. The data's there, even it's illegible or else hard for you to read. But some part of it must have survived for it to still be governing your behaviour in this way.'

'Playmaker...' Ai continues to stare at him, eyes wide. Then shakes himself out of it 'Hmph. I still don't see what's so funny about that.'

'There's nothing to do but laugh in this situation.'

The words come out a little breathless by his side. And just the sound of it, paired with the crescent of Playmaker's mouth as it opens and shuts, caught in a smile against the red, red background of this corridor...

Instantly another video file unfurls inside him like a flower. It's of a duel, the purple-red vines around them leeching across a brown and stormy sky, all part of a tower that is _awful_ , that will do something _terrible_. And he is helpless to stop it, tiny and locked onto a human arm, gazing at a face very like the one beside him now, one that's been battered by Rokket Dragon monsters. Bruises and scrapes tug at the set of Playmaker's chin, coat his cheeks, fold over his brow, but he still looks at him, Ai, his tiny hostage, and smiles.

_'There's nothing to do but laugh in this situation. But that doesn't mean I've given up!'_

'But that doesn't mean I've given up.'

The words aren't spoken as forcefully this time round. But they still knock Ai out of his trance as though they had been. And he realises; his mouth is open, his eyes are wide, still staring at a face that was battered and bruised, his back now abruptly backed into the snug tuck of Playmaker's arm as it wraps around his shoulder and prevents him from escaping and ramming his back into the wall. Because when...when had he moved back?

'Easy,' says Playmaker.

And Ai sees it then, the calculation running behind those green eyes beside him as they watch him keenly, a calculation that doesn't simply set those irises on fire, but smoulders within them instead.

'I thought so,' says Playmaker, a strange fierceness in his eyes, as he removes his arm. 'You remembered something just now, didn't you?'

Ai backs away, hopelessly frightened by this weird confidence he can see reflected in the other, a certainty that doesn't make sense. 'I didn't realise human memory was that good,' he mutters. 'I was under the impression that you couldn't recall the exact phrases you'd once uttered word for word. Not the way I and other AI can.'

'No human can remember every word they've ever said, you're right about that,' says Playmaker stoutly, crossing his arms. 'But most of us can remember the most important ones, the ones that stand out at a pivotal moment in our lives.'

Ai snorts. 'No, I think many of you can't even do that. Not if all the soap operas about husbands forgetting their wives' anniversaries are to be believed.' Then he sniggers. 'Besides; you laughing is a pivotal moment? Wow. You must have been a real fun guy to hang out with when we first met.'

'I wasn't,' Playmaker says. But he is smiling again, despite the crossed arms. 'Not in the slightest.'

'Aw.' Ai leans in close. Maybe he can throw Playmaker off balance again, regain the power he feels he's lost. 'Did I melt your heart? Force you to _'Ai'_ again?'

Playmaker's smile turns just the slightest bit cocky. 'Maybe.' He turns. 'I mean it though. I haven't given up on getting you back. You should bear that in mind.'

Ai blinks. 'Well sure, there's no point in any of this if-'

'No,' Playmaker interrupts, casting him a soft, almost pitying look. 'I mean when you do get your memories back completely. You need to remember exactly that; that I haven't given up. On _anything_.'

* * *

At the very top of the tower, after a series of elevators, is a small room. Strangely though, the code surrounding it feels similar to those zones in the Vrains where you have limited access. Only instead of needing a password or key code to get in, it feels as the situation is reversed; as though entry needs to be granted to the person on the opposite side of the doors.

Ai mentions this offhandedly and Playmaker frowns. Well. More than usual.

'You think someone's locked in there?'

'Hmm.' Ai taps his chin in thought. 'Maybe? It's just the impression I got from a brief scan. And it was put together in a hurry too. Real sloppy work. That or desperate.'

They walk down the corridor and Ai winces. The data's more ruptured here. As though there was a sudden explosion of activity, or a program was only half-way re-written. It feels wrong.

They reach the room only to find it's blocked off by a set of fusuma doors, the usual bland, cream paper-coloured kind you find in traditionally styled houses. And they clash horribly with the rest of the tower, looking out of place next to the bright red walls.

Ai looks at Playmaker. Playmaker gazes back at him.

'You ready to meet the final boss?' Ai jokes.

Instead of replying, Playmaker steps forward and slides open the door with a single strong thrust of his arm – almost as though he's drawing a card.

'We're coming in,' he intones evenly.

Ai scowls. 'You're no fun.' Then he peers over his shoulder.

The room inside is dark. Pitch black. And then a tiny firework blossoms to life in the centre. It shoots out sparks of red, orange, gold, all the colours found inside a single flame.

Memorised, Ai watches. 'Pretty,' he breathes out. It makes him want to take a step inside.

'I'll give you until the count of three to introduce yourself,' someone says, a male someone. Ai can make them out now, by the firework fountain. They're tall and lean, despite how huddled over they are, most of their body tucked under a clock. Their face is hidden, cast under yet another shadow by the tall, brimmed hat perched on their head. 'Starting now. One-' he snaps his fingers.

Playmaker's fingers clench round the edge of the fusuma doors.

' **Two** ,' says the stranger, the word accompanied with another finger snap.

Ai hasn't made up his mind yet, on whether to step inside or introduce himself, or just, maybe to hunker down behind Playmaker's imposing figure. But then suddenly there's no time to decide.

For a burst of light cuts through the spray of the ever-lasting firework – but Playmaker's arms have already wrapped round his middle, and he's thrown down behind the slid-aside fusuma doors just as a jagged heat tears through his shirt. Ai bucks and gasps, as Playmaker growls, a low, annoyed huff by his ear. And then Playmaker's weight is off him, and Ai scrambles round – but there's no running footsteps, no pursuit coming after them both.

A few more shots ring out, more beams of light thud by them at an angle, and Ai yelps and tucks himself in. But then there's a silence.

Ai glances up. Playmaker is standing in the open doorway, glaring out into the centre of the room.

'Are you working for SOL Technologies again, Blood Sheppard?

'The same way you're protecting the Dark Ignis again?' fires back this man, this Blood Sheppard. 'No, unlike you, I've learnt my lesson.'

Playmaker's eyes narrow. 'I've learnt plenty. I know you have no problem shooting people you say you will or even shooting me; but Ai's your main target here. It's why you designed this place to resemble Flame's tower right? And you know he's unlikely to show himself if you get rid of his protector.'

'Exposing yourself to the line of fire is still a stupid decision,' the man points out. He sounds, taunt and angry in a way that makes Ai feels trapped just to hear it. 'Even a common soldier knows better.'

Ai breathes. His hands travel over his torso. The skin beneath his shirt has only been impacted slightly; Yusaku had pushed him out of the way before any real damage had been done.

'Wow,' he murmurs, fingers pressing into the ripped seams of his shirt, a few gliding over the lining of his jacket. 'Good job I was wearing so many layers today.'

Sheer nonsense. Nonsense that the other two humans pay no attention to.

'You could have pursued us out of the room,' Playmaker is busy pointing out to this Blood Sheppard. 'The fact you stayed there and continued shooting means you can't. Why is that I wonder?'

Ai swallows. He stares at a flickering torch nearby. The program responsible for writing the colours and the heat seems to flicker in response to his gaze, and each bright pixal feels familiar. Glancing at it more closely reveals the source code, all that jumble of repeating numbers that bear traces of all the same algorithms locked inside himself.

Ai's breath stutters. Something made this. Something like him.

Playmaker however is still speaking. 'In fact,' he continues, 'none of this is how you usually operate. What happened here?'

Blood Sheppard lets out a 'tch' of sound.

'Do the words 'Aniki' mean anything to you?' Playmaker persists. 'Maybe we can help you; if you help us.'

Blood Sheppard laughs; it's not a pleasant sound. 'Even a bounty hunter has the same pride as a soldier does, Playmaker,' he says, scorn dripping through every syllable. 'You keep playing around with that AI; keep telling yourself you can redeem it, make it better. But it'll turn on you just like before. Just like those SOLtiS have already turned on their owners. The only thing you can do with AI like that is break them down and learn from them, so you're better prepared to destroy the ones that will rise up in their place.'

And suddenly all of Ai's fear is washed away. He rears to his feet, hand outstretched, tearing apart the code from the nearby torch, no, not just the torch, the walls themselves. A crack appears from his tampering, data spilling through, crumbling to nothing. But he doesn't care, _he doesn't care._ Because he can feel it now, the whole sordid history. Tattered code, clumsily reshaped by a human who tore through threads of thought and stray imprints.

There's botched data here. For a shopping list. For remnants of a Duel monsters card, flames flaring out of their joints like swords. For the merest impression of a name.

 _Tak...ru_. It sings. Stops. Then sings to him again. Not in a way any human could recognise it. But it's there. A useless ghost that can't think.

Ai is _furious._

Abruptly, he pokes his head round the edge of the door, the code shivering into something else as he frantically rewrites and reshapes it.

Naturally he's oh-so-kindly greeted with another blast of light to the face. Ai doesn't blink, not even at Playmaker's warning shout. Instead he throws the revamped code out, watching it spread to form a net, threads of purple and red woven together into knotted squares of rope. And the shot shudders and breaks apart as though its poison, disintegrating, before the net falls over Blood Sheppard entirely.

Who promptly curses. Wriggles. Lashes out with one of his arms as though he's a beast. But not with the metal one, Ai notices.

'Oh, shut up!' Ai says shortly. 'This tower and the programs here didn't belong to you in the first place! Let me guess: you ripped them from one of the rebel SOLtiS you tracked down here. But the program turned on you, didn't it?' He points at Blood Sheppard's arm, at the way it sizzles, data flicking off in plumes of smoke as it makes contact with the net.

'I understand now, Playmaker,' Ai says softly, watching this man struggle and hurt before him and feeling nothing, _nothing_ but satisfaction, as this murderer twists and turns beneath the bite of the rope. 'You told me before that the SOLtiS weren't capable of free will, that they weren't like me. And you were right. But that Flame person you were talking about just now...he was like me, wasn't he? And if an AI like me broke down, got disseminated over the net and came into contact with SOLtiS that were here...theoretically I suppose some of their code could be infected, rewritten by a more advanced one. Enough to obtain some measure of free will.'

Playmaker sucks in a harsh breath at his side as though reminded of something.

Ai doesn't turn to look at him. He doesn't want to see his face. Instead he bends down, close enough to see this Blood Sheppard, so he can look him in the eye. But even that is denied to him, the avatar's face showing him wretched pink jagged shapes instead of eyes.

'How _dare_ you,' Ai says, something dark seeping into his tone. He stands up again and steps into the room properly. Watches as Blood Sheppard struggles to breathe. 'How dare you take something that was in their death throes and remake it into some sort of watch-tower! But it got its own back huh? Enough to trap you here.'

'Ai,' says Playmaker quietly by his side. And then that familiar hand is slamming into his shoulder and spinning him round.

'Don't do this. This road...it doesn't lead anywhere good.'

'Do you think that this Flame guy would agree with you?' Ai asks coldly.

'He would,' says Playmaker, without a single trace of hesitation. 'He wouldn't want you to do this. You may not remember him, but I do. He would have told you to deal with it. He was all about self-control and restraint when it was needed.'

'And the SOLtiS that were tortured here?' Ai asks quietly. 'What do they deserve?'

Playmaker shakes him. Actually shakes him by the shoulders as if Ai is human just like him, frail and breakable and easy to persuade with mere _words_. 'Don't lose yourself to this rage, Ai!'

By his feet Blood Sheppard utters a wet, humourless laugh, like he's choking on blood beneath his teeth, despite the face he doesn't have an actual mouth in this world.

'An AI losing itself to emotion? How funny.'

Ai fights back every urge he has to kick the man in the face. Instead he snaps his fingers – in very much the same fashion Blood Sheppard seems to enjoy. And abruptly the ropes disappear and Blood Sheppard's limbs relax, sprawling out to issue smoke from where they drag along the ground. He's not sure why he does it exactly; except something, some instinct tells him that if he does snuff this so-called Sheppard out, then the man will have won somehow.

Playmaker immediately lets go of his shoulders, visible relief in his eyes. 'Stay behind me, right behind me,' he mutters to Ai. 'Don't even step out of my shadow; I can protect you more easily this way.'

Ai blinks. And miraculously, Playmaker's mouth twists into a tight smile.

'Trust me; humans get stronger when they feel as though they're protecting something. So stay right there and I'll be much stronger because of it.'

Now, Ai has watched a lot of shows. Ones where humans get a surge of unrealistic strength whenever their loved ones are in danger and can then beat up the bad guys, no matter how many ribs they cracked in the last attempt. But that's _fiction._ So he looks at Playmaker doubtfully.

But Playmaker's gaze is no longer on him. No, now it's on Blood Sheppard and the brow above twists as though he doesn't like the sight of the other man dashed against the ground like this. But when he kneels he doesn't offer a comforting touch, or even drag the guy into his arms the way humans often do with their wounded.

'And what were you hoping to obtain here, Blood Sheppard?' he asks quietly. 'How long have you been aware of this Aniki's work?'

Blood Sheppard hacks out a cough. 'I don't owe you a thing.'

'Oh yes, you do,' Playmaker says, very, very softly – so softly Ai has to strain to hear him. 'You and eight other people owe me a great deal. Normally, I wouldn't care. But today, with Ai's life on the line, I do.'

There's a very tense silence. After a moment, Playmaker closes his eyes. 'I'll let SOL Technologies know your location. They can send their finest, dig you out of this trap you're in. I can't stop you from hunting Ai; but I _will_ stop you from coming after him.' He stands up and looks down at Blood Sheppard. There's anger there, on his brow. Maybe pity too. Maybe. 'You should find someone to stop you though. I thought you had found that with your sister.'

'You're right,' Blood Sheppard whispers, each word a harsh, nasally grunt. 'I did. But she's busy, with something else. Something that would appeal to you and your heroic tendencies.' He sneers. ' _Someone_ had to take up the slack while you were gone, Playmaker.'

Playmaker frowns. 'What do you mean?' he asks carefully.

Blood Sheppard bites out a laugh. _'_ You've been too busy protecting something you shouldn't, to worry about your human friends. That was a mistake. You've been wasting your energy on all the wrong things.'

Suddenly, he twists to the side, cape jostling with the movement, the material sliding aside just enough to reveal a tiny gun tightly wedged between his fingers of his non-metallic hand.

'Ai!' Playmaker's cry is sharp and heated as the hand rolls slightly, the aim firm and fixed and – oh, there isn't enough time-

There's a savage thrust on his cape, and Ai is suddenly jerked to the side, chin and cheek bashing the floor the very same second the shot passes through the space his head had been. And for one baffled moment he is left staring at the sight of Playmaker's green foot resting snugly on the corner of his cape, a green fist curling into creased swathes of the material above.

Playmaker's other foot however, is soaring firmly forward to kick the gun out of Blood Sheppard's hand. Then he reaches down and seizes it.

'Ai,' he says, his voice tight and furious. 'We're leaving. Now.'

Ai doesn't argue. They tear out of there, fast. Down the stairs, past the torches, and Ai wonders if maybe he should dismantle this tower despite the booby traps Blood Sheppard has probably re-worked into the code but...

'Leave it,' pants Playmaker, seizing his hand and tugging him along, the light of the flickering torches spilling in their wake. 'It's not worth it.'

Ai swallows down his shout. _How do you know?_ he thinks. But they tumble out of the tower, into the sand outside all the same.

'Where's that sensor?' Playmaker asks. 'If we blast it with this, damage or overload it as we fly-'

The signal will get jammed and the firewall will fall, Ai thinks. He nods, the boards get summoned and then they've off, tearing over this sad little SOLtiS graveyard. He points a finger and Playmaker fires, a long smoking hole arching over the sand and causing the green wall in front of them to shudder for a few precious seconds.

They tear through the gap it leaves behind.

Phew, Ai thinks. He glances at Playmaker. But Playmaker is staring down, fingers flying over some small program he's got there, already devising some small message for the likes of those SOL Tech bastards – all so they can fly out and rescue some _murderer._

Ai lowers his gaze pointedly. But does not say a word.

* * *

Look. Ai gets it. Why Playmaker stomped on his cape, why he, Ai, was damn near strangled at the movement and so cruelly forced into a near concussive state-

Okay, yeah, he's not human. He can't get a concussion. Or die from strangulation.

But it's the sheer _principle_ of the thing.

So when they're out of the network, Ai does not immediately spring to Yusaku's side, lean into him or flutter his fingers at his face, or any of those other Yusaku-chan-shaped places that he has to admit, he is gaining a slight urge to explore.

In fact, he does not talk to Yusaku at all. He stands to one side, arms crossed, glaring.

It takes about five minutes for Yusaku to notice. _Five._

'You're being quiet,' he comments.

Ai glares harder.

Yusaku pauses. Turns to face him fully. Stares.

Ai's hands tighten, clench at his fine sleeves. He will not, crack, he will not-

Yusaku frowns. 'Are you sulking?'

'No!' it bursts from him a wild shout. 'It's just...you had these cool lines about protecting me and being stronger because of it, and it was a lie so you could throw me down into a humiliating position on the floor!'

Yusaku's face smoothes over like a pebble. 'Did you want to get shot?'

'No!' Ai stomps his foot. Hard. 'That's not the point! You didn't have to say that cool stuff just to get me to do what you wanted! Not if it's a lie!'

For one very brief moment Yusaku looks earnestly confused. 'It's no lie.'

Ai scoffs. 'Right. Because humans magically get stronger when they protect something.'

Yusaku looks tired. 'Not just humans.' He raises a hand. It hovers as though it wants to travel the distance between them. And then he lowers it.

'I don't care; it still can't be true,' Ai says grimly. 'If it was no one would ever get hurt again.'

There's some wry sort of understanding on Yusaku's face now. 'It doesn't matter. You're safe. So it worked.'

Ai pouts harder. Spins on his heel. Marches over to the dumpy little futon Yusaku has in this place and promptly sprawls himself over it with a sigh, a long and heavy one, as though he could use some sleep.

'So,' he states with a grin, allowing it to grow and turn his expression into an outright taunting one. 'I guess we have a new lead; the mercenary Ghost Girl.' He curls a few fingers through his hair, lets his hand fly through it, and then preens.

Yusaku looks at him.

Ai smiles. 'What?'

'I'm going to need my futon back.'

Ai pouts. Flops over so he's hogging more of the duvet. 'Come ooooon, we can share body-heat! It'll just be the two of us! And it'll be ever so cosy because of it... ' He crooks a finger and tries to splay his chin on his hand in a seductive fashion. 'I'll even let you run your hands all over me to check I'm not damaged from earlier!'

Yusaku's brow rises. 'Is that supposed to be an incentive?'

Ai's lashes lower. 'Only if you want it to be.'

Yusaku sighs.

* * *

Picture this: hackers working diligently through the night, fingers racing over keyboards as they wade through the pile of code the Dark Ignis has tore open minutes hours before. Their fingers are frantic, their brows furrowed. For over them all watches their CEO.

He watches them face shadowed, as the grey colour of the room seeps into each crack and corner, despite the silver light of the many, many screens pooling out along tables and chairs.

Nobody debates the wisdom of this new venture. Nobody asks if they should trust this encrypted message sent to their servers from inside on the virtual worlds linked to the VRAINS. Nobody mentions the word 'Playmaker.'

It takes the better part of the night, a night where half a country away, Fujiki Yusaku rests in the grip of the Dark Ignis. Who stares at him, and wonders at the pulse of emotion in his chest, at the ever-changing strings of code within him that are evoked at the sight of this boy. Who worries that he has made a grave miscalculation in re-locking himself inside a human-like life.

Meanwhile, a different sort of emotion wages its war inside the chest of Zaizen Akira. And the first thing it makes him do, once Blood Sheppard is unearthed from that tower, trembling, exhausted, and spitting curses at them and Playmaker both, is march over to the screen and say low and hard:

'You owe me, Blood Sheppard. Now help your sister find mine and I'll call it even.'

Blood Sheppard looks at him from the huge screen centred on the wall of this massive room, his featureless face blocking all emotion. Then he lets out a snicker, low and cocky.

'You're ordering _me_ around? Huh. Guess I'll see how long this new bravado of yours lasts, Zaizen.'

But it's not bravado. For Playmaker is right, when he tells Ai that humans are stronger when they stand to protect something; it's just not always the kind of strength you can bring yourself to admire.

But then again, this is not a lesson Ai has remembered yet either. But in time, a very short time, he _will._


	6. Where's the Princess?

It is a lie to say that Yusaku does not worry over what Blood Sheppard told him; no, not told. _Taunted._

_'You've been too busy protecting something you shouldn't, to worry about your human friends. That was a mistake. You've been wasting your energy on all the wrong things.'_

Yusaku turns and shifts onto his side, the words still pouring into his mind. The action is made difficult however by the arm draped across him, along with the long puff of the purple sleeve that weighs against his chest like an additional duvet cover. But he manages none the less.

Still; it's disorienting to wake in a new place, to see walls thrown into a new colour. To see the sun spilling beneath curtains and trickle down into the dark hair of someone the world would prefer dead. Yusaku's eyes rest on those curls, slathered with light and shinning near white at their tips, like gold. And now lets the rest of his gaze travel over the long planes of Ai's face, softened in some strange imitation of human sleep.

'Ai,' says Yusaku softly, the fingers in his curled fist twitching, still half-heavy with rest. And yet the impulse to reach out, to touch, to feel the weight of him, Ai, alive, against them is a burn, a brand on his skin that he has to actively fight against.

Yusaku doesn't do touch. Not really. Not for anyone. And yet here...

'Ai, I know you don't sleep,' he says stiffly, and instantly one gold eye cracks opens, the smile that spreads beneath suddenly making Ai's face look a lot more vibrant and deadly.

'But you do! See how thoughtful I am? Aren't _Ai_ great?'

Yusaku frowns. The thought of Ai just lying there, playing the role of teddy bear for the sake of Yusaku's comfort doesn't sit well with him. Though this thought is swiftly interrupted by the sharp prod of Ai's finger against his cheek.

'Aw, are you worried? Cute.' Ai grins as Yusaku bats his finger away with an annoyed frown. 'But fear not! I have my own diagnostic programs to run that requires me to enter a weird sleep-mode like your average computer would. And it's not like I can't rest.'

Ai babbles on and on about how he can wirelessly access the web and distract himself despite having a 'cute Yusaku-chan present in my arms' and Yusaku watches him, each line of that animated face. Blood Sheppard accused him of wasting his energy on the wrong things. But to him, Ai being dead or depressed or alone _is_ a wrong thing. Far more than wondering about the lives of the other people he cares for, people who have things in their lives they are trying to protect, things they don't need him for.

Still. It's enough to prompt him to send a message to Takeru later, over a bowl of miso soup Ai encourages him to make, just to let him know he's alive. Same to Kusanagi.

And when he does a brief search for a few others, he does not find much out of the ordinary. Except.

News articles. Passionate pleas from Zaizen Akira, face stern, but with a shaken sheen to his lilac eyes.

 **'SISTER OF RECENT SOL TECHNOLOGIES CEO MISSING'** screams one headline.

 _'Kidnapping attempt gone wrong?'_ questions another.

 _'Nah, bet she's ran off with a male gold-digger, lol,_ ' one forum post suggests cheerfully enough.

Everywhere there are photos of Aoi and her wide brown eyes staring out at Yusaku accusingly. _You didn't even know I was gone_ , they seem to say.

Gone. Missing. For _weeks_. Like he once was, once upon a time.

Yusaku didn't know. He _didn't._ No, he was too busy following that thread of connection he felt in the network, that spark that felt like Ai.

There's a strange guilt in him at the thought that he hasn't done anything for her in her time of need. And also, that it may not have meant much difference in the long run; that he still may have prioritised finding Ai.

Ai, who is meanwhile scanning the photos of Aoi with a strangely solemn look.

'She's pretty,' he says. 'Be nicer if she smiled more in them though. She was an idol once, right? Though I guess Blue Angel hasn't been on the net a while. She's probably lost a whole bunch of fans.'

Yusaku leans back on his chair. He hasn't considered that. What it means that Aoi seems to have given up on her persona as a charisma Duelist.

'Blood Sheppard said Ghost Girl was focusing on something,' he says. 'And she is quite close with Blue Maiden.'

Ai stares at him blankly. Enough for it to hit Yusaku, yet again, just how much Ai is still missing; Blue Maiden has never really been subjected to the public eye the way he and Soul Burner, or even her Blue Angel persona have. Only the recording of his final duel with Bohman has ever been released; nothing of the ill-fated matches where Aqua and Flame lost their lives, even though he knows Frog and Pigeon newscaster avatars captured their Duels and broadcast them directly to the people involved in the fight against Lightning's faction.

But still, some fragment of that data must exist...and surely Ai is wily enough to pick up on it...

He looks at Ai again who is now peering over at him with a shewd look on his face. 'Huh,' he says. 'I guess it's hard work being an idol.' He grins, his smile low and lavishly spiced with mischief. 'Oh-ho. She must use the Blue Maiden avatar to let off some steam, and maybe do some naughty browsing her fans wouldn't approve of! How indecent!'

He looks far too pleased with himself as he says this, so Yusaku ignores him and stares down at his lap, thinking furiously. Finding Aoi in real life, not just on the net would be...hard. He doesn't really know her as Zaizen Aoi, not really. He doesn't know of any of her habits or hobbies outside of being Blue Angel or Blue Maiden. She could be anywhere. And if she hasn't disappeared of her own volition...

Ai's look rapidly becomes annoyed. 'Oi, are you ignoring me? How cold...' Then he straightens, the annoyance becoming downright stony. 'Hang on, are you seriously thinking of looking for her?'

Yusaku folds his arms. 'You don't have to get involved,' he tells Ai curtly. 'But given what Blood Sheppard said, there's a chance her disappearance might be linked to whatever going on out there, with 'Aniki' and these SOLtiS.'

Ai's face twists. 'And here I was hoping for some downtime...' He shakes himself. 'Where would you even start? Be reasonable, Yusaku!'

'The police reports,' Yusaku says brusquely. 'The interviews. Finding out what Ghost Girl's been up to if she's been investigating the same thing for months.'

Ai's jaw sets.

'I could get it done faster if you'd help,' Yusaku states bluntly, not liking the cold set of Ai's eyes, or the way there's no trace of a smile on his face.

'I won't, Yusaku.'

The words are said almost angrily and Yusaku isn't surprised to hear them; just disappointed.

'Getting involved could just expose both of us to unnecessary danger. Or maybe this entire thing is a trap!'

The look on Ai's face is almost bored and it punches Yusaku in the chest with it; even though Ai has absolutely no reason to be emotionally invested in the fate of Zaizen Aoi in the first place. And even if he does remember her...well. They didn't exactly part on the best of terms last time.

Then Ai shrugs as if completely unbothered, his cape ruffling slightly at the motion. 'Besides...this Aoi girl could have just run away. Maybe she's even doing something similar to what you are now. And if you stick your nose where it's not wanted, you could wreck that.'

Yusaku folds his arms. 'Alright,' he says levelly. 'If you feel that way, you'd better not disturb me then.'

Ai actually gives him an angry look, one that sizzles, and then stalks off as though to do exactly that.

* * *

It's slow going. The computer he'd brought before they left the city is some shoddy, second-hand contraption that isn't quite as good as what he's used to working with.

But still. Once you get down to it, hacking is hacking. And watching the scroll of numbers that flicker across the screen is always an immersive experience. In no time at all, Yusaku finds himself sinking into the rhythm of it, the dance of the code he alters and tweaks far surpassing the annoyance he feels at the overly loud clack of one of the loosened buttons on this unfamiliar keyboard; all he has to worry over is the patterns on the screen, and all the loopholes he can exploit.

It's easy; with this he does not have to worry about Ai and his safety, he can forget about the hole in his heart and the tight feeling in his chest when Ai laughs and speaks and reminds him that he's not dead and yet he's not fully, properly, _here..._

No. _Here_ there is only Yusaku and what his brain and his fingers can do. But unfortunately it seems they cannot do much for Aoi. She never came home from visiting a friend one day – Sugisaki Miya – and Yusaku frowns at the name. He knows she's Aqua's origin, but she's still safe, no longer trapped by an unnatural coma, so he can't see an obvious pattern here.

Still, he types, he searches. But he isn't a magician. Eventually, back stiff and eyes aching, he yanks himself away. The screen wavers in front of him, the way it has oh so many times before. There had been a time when Ai had been the one to pull him away from it, with a chirped comment, or a bad joke...but no. There's no voice to knock him out of this fugue state today. Yusaku has to clamber out of it himself, the same way he has been doing for months now.

In a way, it's another pointed reminder that Ai isn't...doesn't...love him. Yet.

Yusaku fumbles with his phone, enough to curse the fact he doesn't wear a watch. And then stares at the blinking numbers that surface against the lock screen. They reveal to him that most of the morning has raced by, and part of the afternoon too; this would account for the way his stomach cramps and groans and how weak he feels.

Though unfortunately hunger does nothing to overshadow the jolt of worry that strikes him at the fact that Ai has yet to return.

Yusaku staggers to his feet. He's sent a message to Ghost Girl or at least on the forum that posts the sorts of job she's interested in – all posted with a dummy email account of course – but then he's pretty sure that he's dropped enough details in there to trigger her suspicions that it's from him and not an imposter. Either she'll see it or she won't.

Yusaku turns and immediately stumbles into the low-laying table, catching himself with a hard slam of his foot against the floor. The wood bites into his leg, warm and soft, or at least softer in comparison to what he's used to in the city apartments he's lived in.

For there, on the table, are scattered piles of peaches and pears, splashes of vibrant colours both inside and out the shape of a gaudy purple bowl – too many to count. There's even a bunch of strawberries, glowing a dull gem-like red, which Ai has arranged into the shape of a smiley face. And then, as though he couldn't fight the impulse, he's shoved some next to them into the pattern of a winking Ai face, Ignis style.

' _Hand-picked with care'_ lovingly drips the note that's been scrawled out on some torn paper next to them, and left right in the centre of the table, with a pear smoothly slid beneath it to prop it up – there are even tiny love-hearts dotted on the corners of the stationary, Yusaku notes. ' _Don't eat all of them at once; leave a few for me to hand-feed you later, okay?'_

Yusaku stares at it. At the fruit. When did Ai have the time to go and do this?

He takes a step back and there's a rustle of plastic as his foot knock into the side of a bag jammed full of instant noodles – a few familiar brands knocked in with one he doesn't recognise.

Yusaku feels something well up in his heart at that. He rushes out and through the rest of the inn, but no; Ai isn't here. The inn-keeper mentions that she's seen him slip in and out, when he asks her, a concerned look appearing as she stares at him properly and Yusaku has to work hard to bite back the frantic tone that's seized hold of his voice.

No, Ai hasn't mentioned anything to her about when he'll next be back. But he has asked that she prepare something with lots of protein for him when he came out.

'He seemed quite disappointed that we didn't have any hot-dogs,' she murmurs. And then, perhaps reading the thought in his face, she points at a tray on her desk, fresh rolls of sushi pressed into black packets of seaweed and an unwavering bowl of soup.

'I'm glad I listened to him now,' she says, a stern note entering her voice. 'He said you'd probably resurface in the afternoon looking for him and not to worry; he's just exploring this beautiful place.' She gives him an odd look. Then motions towards the tray. 'He may be a machine, but it seems cheap to repay his thoughtfulness with utter disregard; not matter how programmed that concern may be.'

Yusaku pauses. And though his first impulse is to rush out and find Ai, to drag him back if he has to; he swallows it down. Walks over to the desk. Picks up a sushi roll. Bites into it. And chews.

* * *

Yusaku walks through the town, chewing on a peach resentfully. He already misses hot-dogs.

The sun beats down on his face, a truck rattles down the road, rust clinging to its side, and Yusaku can't help but feel wrong-footed by the way he can't smell the sea.

Still, he passes stores, stores maybe Ai walked into to buy the noodles and the fruit...only...some of that fruit was glistening, still wet and shiny to the touch, a few of the sides smudged slightly with dirt, all bruised in a way that often causes store-brought fruit to be thrown out. Yusaku pauses. And glances suspiciously in the distance, where green shines, in orchards and other fields where perhaps fruit could be gathered. And, of course, stolen.

There were tangerine fields; they passed them near the station on the way to their new home. He's no clue where the peaches and pears came from, let alone the strawberries; but maybe Ai wants to complete the collection. So he starts the long trek back to the station.

He's almost there, can even begin to see the tell-tell specks of orange dotting the branches, when he hears shouting. He pauses for a moment. It's not his policy to get involved, unless he thinks someone is about to get hurt – and this sounds more like the enthusiastic whooping of young children than the screams of fear people expect Playmaker to stop. So he takes another step.

'GOOOOOO! KNOCK HIM DEAD!'

The overblown shout is so loud that several birds take to the air. Yusaku watches dispassionately as they quickly become mere black ticks across the sky. Then he turns on his heel and walks – quickly – off the road and into the patch of woodland nearby. To where the oh-so-familiar voice has boomed out from.

'THAT'S THE WAY TO DO IT! NO MERCY!'

Yusaku promptly stops himself before he walks out into a scene that could have come from his own childhood. At least one before the Lost Incident happened and made looking at so much as a monster card painful.

For there are a group of kids scattered across the ground in front of him, the familiar brown backs of Duel monster cards scattered across the ground like the stray fall of autumn leaves. Some however, are turned up toward the sky, revealing colourful monsters. There are even two Duel Disks, several years out of date, with black extension cables pouring out from each of the connector ports that even Yusaku's model no longer requires. The wires of which, criss-cross and tangle in a loose coil around the spread of Ai's feet.

Ai, who is pumping his fists, gesturing dramatically and looking for all the world like he's attempting to make as big a nuisance of himself as possible – except he hasn't stepped on anyone's cards and instead of taking centre-stage, his hand is hooked firmly into the back of an old school robot that hogs the glory instead, each wire jammed fast into its base.

Yusaku's breath catches in his throat a little at the sight. He recognises the design, of course – it's from the same brand that had manufactured Roboppi, made obvious by the round shape of its head and the curved pattern of its visor, not to mention the distinctive stubbiness of the body beneath. Though he notes it is also a much dirtier white colour in comparison to the gentler blue hue that had decorated Roboppi's body.

He watches now as from it's visor it projects a large cinematic screen in the exact same way Roboppi would do for Ai when they were browsing forum posts. On it a Trickstar monster is busy being shattered into pixels, from under the onslaught of white light that pours out of the mouth of a Blue Eyes White Dragon.

A little girl sniffs at the sight, her lifepoints trailing down to zero on the screen. And then resentfully, a full-blown pout puffing up her lips, she draws back the Trickster card from an old school Duel Disk, looking slightly worse for wear.

'Unfair! How'd you get a monster with so many attack points? And it's not even one you get through Link Summoning!'

Her opponent, a stubby boy with a plaster wedged between his nose and his lips, throws out his chest with all the pride of stubborn ten year old.

'I borrowed them from my Grandpa! He has the coolest cards! Much cooler than your lame fairies!'

The girl's cheeks puff out. 'They're not lame! Blue Angel uses them and she helped save Link Vrains!'

'Yeah? Well, she hasn't been using them recently, has she? In fact she's cleared off and taken their popularity with her!'

Unusually enough, Ai is not lapping up the drama; in fact now that the Duel's done, Ai is busy focussing his attention on the robot in front of him. He lets out a few sympathetic clucks of his tongue, despite not actually having one, as the Roboppi lookalike lets out a few whirling clinks, the projected screen shutting off in a rather abrupt fashion.

'There, there, Dumbo! Sorry but your old-fashioned circuitry took a real bruising today...' as though he's a well-practised lab technician, Ai yanks his hand out of the back of his head and then carefully eases the rather chipped white casing back onto its head with a gentle press of his fingers.

A few of the children start groaning at the sight.

'Aw! I wanted a go!'

'Yeah, no fair!'

'Oi, oi, don't be so greedy!' Ai's tone is breezy enough, the same amused, devil-may-care smile fixed on his face as firmly as the casing he's now re-attached to the robot's head. But as he bends down to unhook the cables, spread like the swirling map of tree roots from the robot's base, Yusaku can't help but catch sight of the way his mouth twists, just for a moment, into an unfriendly grimace. The next second, as his head resurfaces, it's disappeared, tucked back into the line of his usual smile.

'Come on, it sucks when your parents nag you to do your homework right? Well, think how this poor robot feels every time you ask it do to another Duel, one after the after, without even a break for supper?! You don't want to be cruel, right?'

One of the kids looks at Ai as though he's an idiot. 'Robots don't eat though?'

Ai gives the robot a friendly pat as he hasn't heard, and Yusaku can't help but notice that it does not bounce or react to it the way Roboppi would have done. 'I've given it a little bit of a reboot,' Ai says, 'adjusted the power settings and improved the battery life; but it's a patch job. The poor thing needs an early retirement. Even I, with all my amazing skills, can't work a miracle! They've got a month at best, before they won't be able to run any duelling program at all.'

Everyone seems to become a little sober at this.

'Poor Subaru,' the little girl with the Trickster deck says softly. She pats one of the white arms gingerly, her fingers running a half-hearted trail over the steel-tipped levers that serve in place of hands. 'They've worked real hard.' She hesitates. 'We...haven't been hurting them have we? With our Duels? It's just...none of our parents want us going on the Vrains anymore and this is the only way we can see our monsters properly so...' her cheeks colour and she trails off.

Ai doesn't look at her. Instead his gaze finds Yusaku still standing amongst the trees, unwilling to intrude.

'It's happy, that you're happy,' he says. 'And it'll do its best to keep you that way until the very end.' He rips his eyes away and sends the little girl a honey-soft smile. 'So be a good girl for it in return, okay?'

She nods shyly.

Ai's gaze sharpens. 'And that goes for your monster cards too! You'd better gather them all up or you'll be cursed!'

One of the boy wrinkles his nose. 'By what?'

Ai grins, stretches out his hands, wiggles his fingers and opens his mouth, all to make some outrageous declaration, but then Yusaku decides to ruin his spotlight by stepping from the shadows.

'You can't call yourself a Duelist if you don't take care of your cards,' he says, bending down to pick up one that is in danger of hosting a new path for a snail. He frowns at the slight crease that ripples over the card art, distorting the lines that make up the monster. 'If you damage them, the program that reads them when you duel virtually might crash – and that's disrespectful to your opponent too.'

Ai scowls but straights and places his hand on his hips, nodding self-righteously. 'That's right! Just what I was going to say.'

Liar, thinks Yusaku, but he does not say this, instead passing back the card to a rather sheepish looking kid who holds out their hand warily for it. He even helps the rest of them them gather up the fallen cards still spread over the grass, watching as with a few beeps, the robot starts to trudge its way out of from beneath the trees. Its wheels cut down a harsh line through the grass, dirt catching in the spokes, as Ai quickly tugs a rather large and knobbly stick out iof its way.

'Bye-bye!' he tells the children happily enough, a wave bursting out of him as they start to follow the robot. Some of them even wave back. And one even mutters, 'I don't care what my Dad says about SOLtiS stealing other people's jobs; Ai's nice!'

Ai grins a bit wider at that, and turns to Yusaku with a flounce. 'Hear that? I'm nice! So you'd better be nice in return!'

Yusaku crosses his arms. 'Oh? And do you think the farmers you stole fruit from will think you're nice too?'

Ai winces. 'I only picked the stuff that would have been rejected anyway...besides! It was for a good cause! Do you want to collapse from hunger? To faint because you're incapable of dragging yourself away from your keyboard and out to the shops? I don't think so!' Ai spreads his arms. 'And look at this place! Fresh produce! You don't find goodies like these lying around the city! In fact, it would be a crime _not_ to take advantage of our new environment!'

'I would still prefer it if you didn't get us in trouble with the locals,' Yusaku says dryly, not appeased in the slightest.

Ai scowls and points after the children. 'What do you think I'm doing! A way to a town's heart is through befriending the future generation!'

Yusaku grimaces. 'And what happens when those children start talking about you to their parents? And they start to realise that you're more than an ordinary SOLtiS! Our innkeeper already has questions, I can tell, just by the way she talks about you!'

Ai frowns and looks away. 'What's the alternative?' he asks quietly, a serious note creeping into his voice. 'Hiding away inside the net forever?'

Yusaku's grip on his sleeves tighten. He remembers a factory months ago and asking, no, telling Ai to do exactly that.

Ai glares off into the distance a moment more, and then huffs. 'Wow. What a fun life. In hiding, with no one to talk to!' He spins and prods Yusaku in the chest. 'I could do it sure, but why should I? I'm all _alone_ , Yusaku. There's _nothing_ out there in the net like me to have so much as a meaningful conversation with. Humans are the closest I can get to.'

Yusaku doesn't have an answer. He didn't back when Ai was plotting out his death, and he still doesn't now when he's been given this second chance to steer Ai away from all that.

'Besides...' a warm tease slides through Ai's tone, makes it soft, and yet lurking within it is a dark menace that has Yusaku's shoulders tensing, even as Ai turns to him and jostles his shoulder with his own. 'There are a few things out here, in this world I want to try...' he leans closer, the gold of his iris brightening, seeming to swallow the outside world whole with its light. 'You'll help your old partner out, right Yusaku? Keep me out of trouble?'

A finger strokes his shoulder playfully, running into the seams of his shirt. With an effort Yusaku steps back and away, brushing it off.

'Explain,' he says shortly.

And Ai smiles as though Yusaku has already said 'yes.'

* * *

Yusaku should really say no. He really, really should.

'Aren't you afraid of getting damaged?' he has asks testily, staring at the sign and then glaring at the rules, at all the listed dos and don'ts. But sadly, no, they don't say anything about prohibiting wayward SOLtiS or the idiotic AI in the driving seat. Of course not. Like the innkeeper said, Ai's the first one people around here have ever seen in action.

Ai laughs. 'I know you're not that dumb,' he purrs as he collects a bucket, smiling winningly at the innkeeper who returns it readily enough, fishing out a key for their locker in under five seconds flat. 'SOL Tech designed these things to be reasonably waterproof so they could help the elderly and disabled bathe. Some even have swimming software installed so they can be used as lifeguards in emergency. Besides-' Ai leans closer, his voice brushing the shell of Yusaku's ear in all the wrong places. 'I want to see what you look like, all wrinkled like a prune. I bet you've only ever lived in places that can afford the cheapest of shower stalls.'

Yusaku can turn and walk out right now. He can leave Ai here, and see how far he gets now that he doesn't have a human 'owner' accompanying him. Instead he grabs a towel, tries his best not to let his annoyance stir the expression on his face too much, and stomps into the changing room.

Ai trails after him, laughing at his back all the while.

* * *

Thankfully, Ai has kept his commentary to himself - _mostly._ Enough at least, for Yusaku to relax minutely. The night sky pours out above them, dark and unashamed, and Yusaku buries his body further into the heat of the water, a rock at his back and steam rolling out to blur the shapes around him. Most are more of the same, rocks, while one is a open pipe, water pumping out in a fierce waterfall, and the rest are humans. One is elderly and guiding his trembling hand round a bottle of sake, while a few gesture wildly, resolving themselves into a set of rowdy adults laughing over a joke Yusaku has no interest in hearing. And of course, one shape, the closest to him, close enough to touch, to actually breathe in, is Ai.

Yusaku takes a moment to enjoy the dizzying heat of the water, to feel it pour molten pressure on his bones, to erase the strain in his muscles and erode them into patches of simple pleasure, and then re-focuses on Ai. Ai, who is running a finger round a wooden tray, perfectly balanced on the smooth ripples of the water like a lilli-pad. Ai, whose eyes gleam like candles, like stars in the dark, whose hair has been pulled back from his face, to leave the lines of it open and unblemished to Yusaku's eyes. He's even arranged at the top of his head in a ponytail with the aid of a purple tenugui he's fished out from somewhere, the cloth patterned with pale violets that barely left an impression against the steam that swirls around them both.

Yes, this is Ai, who does not sweat, whose skin does not gleam with it the way Yusaku's body does, who can never release pheromones or attract the human subconscious in a chemical sense, whose body contains slight, unattractive cracks between the limbs, as though everything has been slotted together, a patchwork doll of metal...

...And yet the way his shoulders, his neck, even part of chest surfaces above the water like a mighty archipelago, draws in Yusaku's attention like a laser. He's never known anything like it.

Any other teenager would stare. Might swallow and pray to someone, anyone.

Not Yusaku. He closes his eyes again.

He loves Ai. He knows it, it weighs on him like something physical. Even without the human-like body, the love will stay, will rest and clutch at him like something hungry.

But that's the point isn't it? Yusaku is human. And had this beautiful creature in front of him not been Ai, not had his personality, Yusaku would never feel this need to watch, to take everything he can about him in. In fact, he would pass him by without a second thought.

There's a snigger. Yusaku opens his eyes and watches warily as Ai crawls towards him, shoulders cutting though the water in parody of set of shark fins.

'Yu-sa-ku,' purrs his partner, 'I just remembered; I left you a note earlier, didn't I? Saying that I would hand-feed you? Well, I would hate to disappoint...so say 'ahh!''

Beaming, Ai raises a cocktail stick triumphantly, a tiny crescent slice of tangerine speared though its side. Wounded, it droops, wilting over the steam and looking, in short, like something you would never readily place in your mouth.

Yusaku eyes it, then drops his glance to the tray that drifts at Ai's side, at the plate on it that nurses segmented slices of a peeled tangerine.

'Where did you get that?' he asks.

Ai beams. 'I got the tray from that old guy, who got tired of balancing his sake bottle on it and the tangerine I liberated from over _theeeere._ '

Ai pointes at a dark shape that drops through the steam like a thunderbolt and after moment Yusaku recognises it as a tree branch.

'I'm not sure that's sanitary.'

Ai scowls, nails digging into the cocktail stick, hard enough to let a worryingly loud creak escapes from it's structure. As Yusaku watches, a single orange bead of juice escapes the skin of the fruit piece it's holding hostage and drops into the thin strip of water between them. A space that rapidly becomes smaller as Ai leans in closer.

' _Eaaaat_. _ **Ittt.**_ ' It escapes from Ai's mouth in little growl, sung out in a little trill of annoyance as he all but shoves the fruit in front of Yusaku's face like a pushy hostess. 'Are you seriously going to refuse a gift from me?'

Yusaku stares at him blankly, taking in the ridiculous pout on his partner's face. And the odd way the purple towel on his head, the one holding back his hair, pokes out at uneven angles doesn't help either.

Without so much as a word he pushes Ai's hand away from him, ignoring the weird looks they're starting to receive from the other people here.

Ai's pout grows into a scowl. 'Isn't this how humans go on lovey-dovey with each other? By feeding each other? Shouldn't you be jumping at this opportunity? The one you love is holding out a sweet treat for you!' He smiles and mimes licking the tangerine slice, and Yusaku watches it, that flash of pink escape his partner's lips in an artful swirl; and despite the fact that he knows it's a hard-light projection, that it isn't a real muscle slicked with salvia, he feels something in him stir at the sight.

Something on his face must give him away because Ai grins, tilts his head to the side coyly, and says in a crooning whisper that's just a _little_ too loud, and that carries across the pool further than he may intend: 'Come on, Yusaku, _relax._ You deserve a reward for keeping me safe so far...so let's take our time here, and _linger_ as _slowly_ as we want. There's no hurry to get your hands _dirty_ again.'

Okay, Yusaku is definitely not imagining the snigger that escapes from the opposite side of the pool this time.

'That's some program that guy's got running there,' he hears someone else mutter. 'I wouldn't mind having that run on you know, a female SOLtiS.'

Ai seems to flush at that, hunkering down into the water and lowering his body so that his cheeks are artfully concealed by the steam. Only to forget about the cocktail stick trapped in his hands and with a sigh, Yusaku is rapidly forced to fish out both it and the trapped slice. before it flashes out beneath the surface of the pool like an escaped goldfish.

'Come on,' he mutters, dumping it back on top of the tray. Then he lifts himself from the water. 'That's long enough. I don't want you waterlogged.'

Ai frowns up at him, something flashing in his eyes as Yusaku stands above him, skin, limbs and everything in-between unveiled to the light.

'I give you a seven out of ten,' he mutters sullenly. 'You're pretty nice-looking for a computer nerd.'

Yusaku ignores him. Though it becomes progressively harder once they're back in their room and Ai is busy twirling round dramatically in an indigo yukata that Yusaku is not sure he wants to know where he got it from.

'Check it out!' Ai calls out excitedly, his despondent mood of seconds ago wiped clean with another twirl, before he poses with the flourish of a ballerina, hair flying down his back. 'What do you think? This is the first time you've seen me in a yukata, right!?'

He wilts as Yusaku continues to ignore him, wrapped in his own yukuta, a stately green that he borrowed from the innkeeeper.

'Wow. Are you sure you have feelings for me? My plan to make you fall for me might have run into a snag if this is how you react to me in a single layer.'

'You were naked a few minutes ago,' Yusaku points out and Ai wilts even further.

'Gah! Don't rub it in even further! At this rate, you'll convince me I have no sex appeal whatsoever!' He flops down against the table burying his head in his arms dramatically. Only to sneak a peek at Yusaku through his hair not a second later to gauge his reaction.

'Those hot springs felt good at least, right?' he asks apparently giving up. 'The temperature is good for soothing muscular pains and craps right? Should help after a day of you locked over that keyboard.'

Yusaku blinks. And Ai laughs lowly, unrolling himself from the table and crawling round on his hands and knees quite deliberately.

'I knew it!' he crows. 'You're not wincing as much as you were before!' He crawls closer, a hand coming up to perch on Yusaku's knee, the lapels of his yukata falling open, almost artfully so as he folds himself neatly in half. Partially kneeling, his head sways into his partner's personal space, and then Yusaku's hand in on his chest, perhaps to push him away, perhaps not, because the heat is there, sparks colliding as his fingertips meet perfect computer-generated skin...

Ai's face is close, so close, a strange temptation that once upon a time would have had no thrall upon him, but Yusaku wants it. He just _wants_ it.

His hand moves, travelling over those loose lapels, across Ai's neck, onto his face, his hair, maybe to keep him close, maybe to shove him away at the last minute, he hasn't decided yet; this is too soon for either of them. And he's not sure if Ai understands yet, the enormity of the game he's playing...

The door to their room flies open.

Yusaku freezes. He's close enough to see Ai's rectangular pupils widen in shock.

'I'm afraid you don't have time for any of the Dark Ignis' games,' comes the strangely unsteady tone of Ryoken Kogami.

Yusaku's eyes immediately fly over to him, to trace the shock as it drains away from his friend's face, even as it's replaced quickly with a much sterner look as Ai promptly screeches and rips himself away from Yusaku's lap to press himself against the far side of the wall.

'Yusaku! You didn't tell me you had an EX! Is this where you take all your conquests?!'

The innkeeper meanwhile is hovering in the background, eyes wide, while her hands wring together nervously.

'I'm sorry...he said it was a family emergency and he needed to see you at once,' she hastens to explain.

Ai snorts, takes another look at Ryoken's stern expression and then promptly flies back to Yusaku's side, hands burying into the back of his yukata in a childish fashion.

'Is this guy like Blood Sheppard? Another enemy who wants me dead?'

Ryoken's expression tightens at his words, and Yusaku's heart sinks at the sight. Because Ai has no idea, not really, just how important the question he's just asked really is.

* * *

Picture this: in a dark room, miles and towns away, a sleeping girl lies. Her hair, unkempt and uneven, travels out from under the press of a visor that sinks down over her head, black and heavy in parody of a crown. The brown strands trailing beneath are long and wavy, nearly reaching a length only Zaizen Akira, Sugisaki Miyu and her long-dead parents have ever seen on her, as they cross a pillow coated in the gruelling stench of unwashed fabric.

Minutes pass. And then:

The girl arches, lets out a cry. Electricity sparks over the headset, travelling down in undulating coils of light over her body to dance cruelly over her sweat-soaked school uniform. And for a few minutes more she shivers. Then she sits up and practically rips off the headset.

Zaizen Aoi, pants, glaring harshly down at the source of her pain. Her hands tremble, as though caught between the desire to throw it, to see it clatter against the floor, or to cradle it close.

Then after a moment, one hand lifts up, to trail through her hair. She frowns at its length.

'I didn't even have a chance to use Marincess Marbled Rock this time...' her eyes narrow. 'Are you still watching me?' she calls out. 'Are you finding this fun?'

Her calls remain unanswered. Only the shadows here speak to her.

Aoi stares down at the headset on her lap. And after a moment she steels herself. Before lifting it back onto her head, to seal away her eyes once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Being Aoi means suffering. But we knew that already.


	7. No Neanderthals at the Negotiation Table Allowed

'Did you have to make yourself a public enemy of SOL Technologies?' Ryoken asks tightly. He's busy nursing green tea in a plain nondescript cup in his hands, while Yusaku sits across from him pointedly draining water from his own. Ai, meanwhile, is knelling on a cushion at the far end of the table, as the self-appointed head, after having waved away the innkeeper with an imperial wave of his hand; something that seems to set a deeper furrow between Ryoken's brow at the sight.

Ai, of course, has no cup, no drink to keep his hands busy, so they come up to rest on his cheeks, his elbows braced on the table as he tilts his head to the side and watches them with a fey light in his eyes. He looks overly eager, almost excited, as Ryoken bites out a harsh: 'I expected you to have more sense than this, Yusaku. You've always been so careful in the past. But now your latest declaration to his chief of Security, as well as your decision to lead them to Blood Sheppard, has caused Zaizen to send bounty hunters across the net for you, as well as hire a few private investigators to track you down in the real world. You're lucky we still have one or two moles in there willing to pass along information to us; otherwise we'd be completely blind to what he's doing.'

Ai makes a face. 'Sounds like a charming guy, this Zaizen...expelling all this effort to hunt down a sixteen year old.' Then he shrugs. 'Or, well, me, I suppose. I'm the real target here. Man, it's hard being so desired.'

' **Exactly** ,' states Ryoken, managing to make himself sound dangerously angry without raising the volume of his voice. 'Whether your re-mergence in Yusaku's life has ill intent behind it or not, it is a clear fact that your existence will always makes waves in the human world to those who understand what you are. And Yusaku is a much more straight-forward target for them, than you, who can disappear into the net at a moment's notice.'

Ai gives him a withering smile. 'Wow. How clever of you to work out something so _obvious._ I'd be far more impressed however if you told us how you managed to track us down, given that I don't believe Yusaku or I are an 'inside source' for you like your goons at Sol Technologies.'

Ryoken looks like he wants to throttle him, but Yusaku settles his cup down with a delicate chink of china as though to break the tension deliberately.

'It doesn't matter. I would have got myself involved even if Ai had never come to me again.'

Something in Ryoken softens then. It's not obvious; it's in the way his clenched fingers loosen around his cup and the harsh steel in his eyes lightens, enough for his expression to no longer be rightly called a glare. 'How foolish. I had hoped you were attempting to move on...but I had a feeling that you were looking for him. Why else would you disappear from everyone's lives?'

'Yes, how dare a human love me,' Ai mutters petulantly. 'Only other biological organisms are worthy of each other's time and care.'

For the first time, something like annoyance, rather than outright anger appears on Ryoken's face. His eyes flicker over to Ai and he looks...conflicted.

'That's the way it works, Dark Ignis,' he says after a moment. 'When you have two different life-forms on the same planet that achieve similar levels of sentience, both become arrogant enough to prioritise the survival of their species over the over. And it often leads to eradication for one party.'

'You mean the way the poor Neanderthals couldn't stand up to the might of modern day humans?' Ai asks, an inquisitive light in his eyes.

And Yusaku feels a little sick at the sight. Because if Ai had all his memories, of all the other Ignis, there is no way he could be so cavalier over the subject.

Perhaps Ryoken feels the same. Because his hand tightens on his cup as he states: 'That's a good analogy, I suppose, despite the fact that we can only theorise over the true cause of their extinction...' he trails off, so his eyes can latch onto Ai's more firmly, to give him a heavy stare. 'Much like how I can only theorise that this amnesia of yours is real, and not an elaborate lie.'

Ai grins and leans back on his haunches, hands slapping the table enthusiastically. 'Hah! I knew you'd crack! You keep getting all fidgety when I say or do something that shows I don't remember a _thing-_ ', he sings, '-that's more than three months old.'

'You could be lying,' Ryoken says, not letting up on his heavy stare. 'That's always a possibility. It's impossible not to know for sure unless you allow someone to scan the entirety of your program.'

Ai's eyes narrow in a very tight glare. Then they close, the rest of his face relaxing abruptly. 'My, my, how forward of you! And we've only just met!' He clasps his cheeks with a sigh, a full-blown blush staining his cheeks, one that Yusaku has a strong suspicion has been forcibly programmed to appear.

The blush disappears however as Ai opens his eyes, a glimmer of something menacing appearing in them. 'But unfortunately, Yusaku-chan is the only one for me!'

He scrambles round the table, head brushing Yusaku's shoulder as he leans onto to him and snuggles his chin into the crook of his partner's neck. 'He's the one who holds the key to my heart! And probably my memories too!' He keeps his eyes fixed on Ryoken the entire time. 'And what of your memories, hmm? The ones that should tell you how you found us? Believe it or not, I'm not the one of us who's holding back on the truth!'

A slightly wry smirk pulls at Ryoken's mouth. 'I had help. Perhaps you two should meet.'

* * *

'Hello again.'

Pandor stands there, a sleek green figure against the night sky. She waits patiently outside the inn, the warm golden glow of the window nearby reaching out to paint oily strokes of light over the smooth surface of her body. She reminds Yusaku a little of the way flower petals can be depicted under an artist's brush, how the colours fold back to reveal the shine of light over their silken folds; she's similarly polished, no visible defects on her the way there would be on human clothes and skin.

She seems quite unaware of how ethereal she appears however, for all she does is tilt her head to the side, smiling a little at the gobsmacked expression on Ai's face. And there's a warmth to it now, a slight trace of the humane that he can't quite remember there being before; though to be honest he hadn't really been paying attention to Pandor that much the first time round.

'It's nice to meet you again, Ai,' Pandor says kindly. 'I can't tell you how happy I am, to be able to talk with you like this again.'

Ai takes a step forward. He looks rather shaky all of a sudden, and Yusaku frowns, wondering if he should do something to stop this. But then Ai takes another step forward, and another and another, his cape spilling far out of Yusaku's reach as his hand reaches out to waver slightly, in the air.

'You're a strange thing.' It tumbles out of Ai's mouth, rough and harshly upset. 'You've left yourself open, no encryptions, just all these transmissions flowing out as though you want someone to hack you and yet...can I?'

Yusaku is no entirely sure he understands what Ai is asking, why he's looking at Pandor as though she's a goddess waiting to bestow some mighty gift upon him, but there's a flutter over her rose-red eyes, that speaks of a calculation being done or data being transmitted. And she smiles very, very warmly, a look of intense satisfaction on her face.

'You have my permission.'

A strangled sob escapes Ai's mouth and then there's a cascade of gold shimmering round the air between them, a sphere of symbols and equations, decorating the air like something out a virtual game involving sorcery and magic runes. Yusaku casts a look Ryoken's way but he's just overseeing the spectacle with a stony look upon his face and his arms crossed, not a flicker of other emotion to be read there.

Ai stands still, the gold in his iris lighting up. And then some of the symbols in the sphere convert to purple, run and criss-cross with the gold ones, like two separate paint colours mixing.

Yusaku doesn't understand; these lines of code look like a mis-mash between nonsense and a made-up language of numbers and keystrokes. Some sort of impossible transmission is taking place between the two he can tell, impossible because they are not in any sort of virtual world and yet here they are, two artificial intelligences making a wireless transmission turn solid, or at least visibly projecting it in a holographic format. He can't think of any way it's technologically feasible...and yet it's happening before his eyes.

And then the sphere of light winks out, and Ai takes a step back. Sways. Then takes a step forward again.

'You're like me,' he says, voice breaking. 'You're like me!'

'Not entirely,' Pandor corrects gently. 'My algorithms have been constructed in an entirely different way from your own.'

'No,' Ai breaks in harshly, fists clenched. 'That's not true! I can see some patterns there that match my own – or at least the beginning lines of them.'

'I was constructed in part, on the systemic readings and mapping involved in the creation of another AI – one who went by the name of Aqua,' Pandor says, a flicker of pity crossing her face. 'Her programming was incredibly advanced when it comes to reading body language and analysing the variance in tone of the spoken language, enough for her to readily tell the difference between truth and falsehood.' She hesitates. 'I believe you and her were very close, once upon a time.'

Ai freezes, something in his face closing off. Then he spins on his heel. 'Happy now?' he spits at Ryoken. 'You got your 'scan' of me after all!' He glares back at Pandor, something torn in his expression. 'I don't have my memories, nothing beyond what I was four months ago. I've seen some things that could be them; enough to know they're sad and painful.' His fists clench. 'If what you say is true then you know I'm not lying. And I'll tell you this now; I'm not so sure I want to go back to being that unhappy AI I must have been at the end of it all.'

Yusaku's heart thuds once, painfully at those words. It hits his ribs, a sharp hurt that sears a cold, sharp dread through him. He doesn't want Ai miserable, no, but he wants him to know who he is, fully too.

'Someone does,' Pandor says. But she is not looking at Yusaku as she does so. 'For the first two months after your disappearance, data has been trailing out through the net, data I cannot read properly, too fragmented for me to piece together. But it has been drifting through networks, into the wireless networks of households who own SOLtiS. And it has been merging with their code, reshaping elements of their programming. Enough for some of them to break away and go rouge.'

Yusaku breathes, dread settling in his stomach. It reminds him uncannily, of the explanation Ai gave him in their last duel, of how, exactly he planned to give all those copies of himself free will, by dismantling and breaking down his own program.

'Parts of it match elements of your own code, Ai,' Pandor continues, oblivious to his terror. 'I see that clearly now. At the time it was too damaged to read. And I believe you were the originator, though not intentionally so.' She frowns. 'Because I believe that this is another individual at work here, someone who followed the scattered remnants of your program on the net; which is why there's been released footage of you shown, and how I tracked you here; parts of you are broadcasting your location like a tracker, as though someone placed one on you before you fully reformed. But at a frequency only another AI would readily detect.'

Ai looks nervous. He even runs his hands over his own chest as though his fingers could dig inside and rip the offending parts of code clean out. 'I feel dirty,' he mutters. 'And not in the fun kind of way.'

'It's why you should come with us,' Ryoken breaks in. His face is stern but there's something in his gaze when he looks at Ai, as he takes in the panic and anger on the other's face, something there that Yusaku desperately wants to trust. 'We have active jammers in place from our base of operations; plus there is safety in numbers.'

Ai looks torn. So Yusaku steps forward and takes his hand. His fingers close round it firmly, but it just lies there, placid in his grip as Ai starts and stares at him and Yusaku forces himself to ignore the other sets of eyes on them, Ryoken's and Pandor's both, as he speaks.

'You don't have to trust them. Just trust me. I'll keep you safe, I promise.' He attempts a smile, squeezing that hand, one made warm by the whirl of computer monitors and hardware, rather than the rush of blood that spills through his own. 'I've done a good job so far, remember?'

Ai hesitates. But after a moment his fingers curl into Yusaku's, lock into the gaps between them and squeeze, the way a lover's would. It's a gesture Yusaku could never accept from anybody else.

'Let's go,' he says softly, and is gratified to see the trust spark in Ai's eyes in response.

* * *

Light flies over the water. It lifts and casts off in flickers of bright white, as the waves bob, casting an illusion of shattered teal-green diamonds along the surface of each one.

It was worth a two hour car journey, Ai thinks, just to see this. He watches the waves as they rise and fall into themselves, over and over, the pattern of motion repeating, and prompting Ai to idly scan the few hundred he can see rolling all the way out to the horizon. In the same way a human child takes a crayon to a colouring book, he predicts the creation and fall of the new waves waiting to unfurl seconds in the future, with vectors and graphs, ones made too fast for humans to read, let alone register.

And now he watches, sheer delight on his face as as his predictions play out in reality with only a few errors...he got about eighty-three percent of it right. He should hate it, really, how much he got wrong. He doesn't. Still. Perhaps it's more pleasing to concentrate on the colours of the waves, on the heady blue that hides the outline the of fish that flash past, unless, perhaps, they're bigger than the ones human typically like to fish up on their plates...

Ai's narrows his eyes, uses the optical sensors on the SOLtiS' metallic head beneath the pretty imagery of his face projected above to zoom in and – _yes!_ **YES!**

'Yusaku!' he calls spinning round and racing over to drag his partner away from that boring death-stare match he's got going on with that creepy Spectre guy. He practically crashes them back against the railing of the boat a few seconds later, just in time for a Sei Whale to surface, the dark grey of its body rising above the waves like a small island.

Water scatters its way across the deck as the whale snorts, the black breach of its blowhole flaring, and Ai laughs wickedly in sheer delight, his curls damp and half-flattened as he shakes himself like a dog. He casts a look at Yusaku's annoyed face and laughs harder at seeing those pink and blue spikes, usually so rigid and gravity-defying, cast down to drip like inky tendrils around the curves of his cheeks and forehead.

Ai's laugh dies down into a chuckle, and then he follows some stray impulse to push the wet hair away from his partner's cheeks, to brush it back from his forehead – he surprises himself with how tender he's being, but it feels nice somehow.

'Come on, seeing a whale in real life and not locked on a computer screen has gotten be more fun than making eyes at Ryoken's butler!'

Spectre raises a brow, looking decidedly un-amused at this description as Ai leans forward and whispers teasingly, 'Come on, Yusaku, you're gonna make me jealous if you keep that up!'

'Would that make you Fujiki's consort then?' Spectre asks – and there's something mean there in his eyes, in the shape of his mouth as it curls, as it enters his voice like a poison.

Ai can feel Yusaku bristling at his side a the tone, but then Yusaku has been prickly with _everything_ here aside from Ryouken and possibly Pandor. The other three humans, all science-nerds, so probably a bunch of creepy doctors themselves, have kept below deck, huddled round their equipment like dragons hoarding treasure, all neat and slick in their white lab-coats. Yusaku has ignored them mostly, except when they greet or ask him something, and they, for their parts, have pointedly ignored Ai. It's like they're not sure what to make of him being here, in the space they live and eat and breathe and that's _fine._ Ai's not too sure what to make of them either, not when he registers the thinly-coiled tension that enters Yusaku's shoulder whenever they're within spitting decision.

Spectre though...he gets the feeling Yusaku wants to ignore him. But Spectre keeps inviting himself into their space, making little jabs here and there, so that by now Yusaku is practically radiating the aura of a spiky hedgehog.

'Huh,' Ai snorts tossing his head back and hugging Yusaku's arm. 'Who's to say Yusaku isn't my consort? Ever think of that?'

'I find it hard to believe you think at all,' Spectre retorts. 'But then again, it's hard to tell what you're thinking of; your brain doesn't work on quite the same level as ours.'

No, of course it doesn't, Ai wants to retort. It's not limited by those rigid neural pathways it has to obey, it's not trapped inside a skull and stuck within its own biological capacity.

But up here, on a boat he can be pushed off, where the encryption of the wireless network is reworked and guarded by an AI with the same capabilities as himself, it doesn't seem the wisest of ideas to push the boundaries of people who seem apprehensive of him to say the least. So he settles for sticking out his tongue.

'We're ready.' Ryoken's voice drifts over, annoyance present in every syllable. 'Everyone is waiting below deck.' His eyes find Ai. 'And if you like being the centre of attention so much, Dark Ignis, you should have no problem playing the role of bait, for whoever it is that first drew Sol Technologies' attention to you.'

Ai feels Yusaku tense by his side yet again. 'How nice of you to volunteer me,' he, Ai, says sullenly. But they _do_ find themselves clambering below deck a moment later, and Yusaku _does_ accept the towel the woman, Baira, presses into his hands with hardly any hesitation.

Ai giggles as he scruffs his hair with it, running over his forehead and then letting it drop to hang round his neck like a loose white python.

'You're so cute,' he sighs, un-phased as Yusaku glares at him sullenly. 'But here, if you really hate aquatic animals so much, I've got the perfect present to make it up to you!' With an artistic flourish, Ai yanks a card out of his sleeve. A...slightly crinkled one.

'It's not my fault!' he says defensively as Yusaku gives him a look. 'Those kids back at that town just don't know how to look after their cards right! I practically rescued it so it can have a much better owner like you!'

'So you stole a child's card,' Ryoken says levelly. 'It seems even without your memories you're still the same petty creature you once were.'

'I don't feel as though we have much room to be casting stones,' one of the male scientists mutters, the one with dark hair and a gruff voice.

Ai ignores them, flouncing over to a machine he recognises. 'Oi,' he says roughly, 'I'm borrowing this!' And without further ado, he scans the card, producing a replica that inhabits the cyber world. He draws the data out and wirelessly transmits it to Yusaku's Duel Disk, blowing him a theatrical kiss as he does so, arms spread and mouth perfectly puckered. 'Ta-da! A present for you, my favourite partner.'

Yusaku gives him a look that seems to say, _you're my only partner_ , and no, it's not wishful thinking because _nobody_ has eyes like Ai when it comes to Yusaku, he's _sure._

Still, regardless of what the look actually means, Yusaku glances over at the card carefully, and then immediately dismisses it. Ai wilts.

Ryoken closes his eyes, a rather pinched look on his face. Then he walks over to the nearest desk, places his hands down with delibrate care, and stares everyone down.

'Back to the issue as hand,' he demands. 'Whoever is messing with the SOLtiS and their programming isn't strong enough to go after Ai directly. But the fact they spilled his existence and location to SOL Technologies – as well as perhaps manipulating events so he would go to a place where Blood Sheppard was lying in wait - seems to suggest that they're content to let someone else do the job for them.' He shrugs. 'So if we arrange a scenario where they think Ai is about to be deleted; they may get careless.'

Yusaku folds his arms. 'You're hoping that they'll want to watch,' he says, looking queasy at the thought. 'That something will spark to life in the network – a hyperlink, a virtual camera, or a data trail that will get established and link them to this staged scenario.'

'It's a stretch,' Ryoken admits. 'But we don't understand their motives; so we have to make them come to us. And all we have at this point are guesses.'

Ai lets out a theatrical shiver. 'You mean I get to act? To lament and wail against the cruelty of fate and plead for my life?' He smiles darkly. 'That sounds like a wish-fulfilment fantasy for all of you, doesn't it?'

The woman, Kyoko, looks slightly discomfited by his words. The rest not so much. Spectre is even smiling at the prospect.

Ryoken doesn't let his mouth curl in the slightest, of course. 'Would you rather we make it a reality?' he asks levelly.

Ai grins. 'So scary!' He casts a sly look at Pandor. 'You okay with that, Miss Pandor? And here I was, thinking you were happy to talk to another AI like yourself!'

Pandor looks visibly conflicted. 'I am. Which is why I would like to make another suggestion.' She makes a motion with her hand, as though to slide a door open, and a teal-green globe spears in front of her. 'Thanks to the unveiling of Blood Sheppard and the trap that was sprung upon him, I have a better idea of where to look now. I've been following the online activity of various SOLtiS, and have found a few other troubling signals, that fall into the same frequency.' She looks at them all. 'I believe we should investigate these signals, and gather more data before embarking on any sort of plan. Then we can make more accurate 'guesses.''

Oh. Okay. Yes, Ai likes this plan. It's like those quests you can do in video games, right?

'Yusaku and I are going to work together,' he declares stoutly. 'No splitting us up. Or I'm out.'

Yusaku says not a word. But his glare leaves no room for anybody to disagree with him.

'Perhaps we should dismantle the trackers placed within your systems first,' Pandor cautions. 'With this new plan, there is no need for you to broadcast the signal the enemy has been using to keep track of you.'

Ai thinks about this. Ever since Pandor brought it up last night, he has been raking through his system with a bit more care, combing with each erratic spike of data. He's found a few, enough for him to gnash his teeth and curse himself for his own carelessness. Trouble is, they'd been placed inside him when he was still barely functional, only just beginning to reform, rooted at the very core of his programming. As a result, he had thought that any stray fluctuations arising from that sector of him were natural – it's certainly not as though he has any prior reference to what that part of him should feel like!

'I'll leave a few on,' he decides. 'No harm in letting myself play the role of easy bait, a while longer.'

Then he takes care to smile. As though the idea doesn't bother him in the slightest.

But the look Ryoken gives him in return? That seems to say he's not fooled by Ai's cavalier act at all.

And Yusaku's unfortunately, is very much the same.

* * *

Picture this: a jumble of programs, shaped like small spheres, globes of blue and green light. They are drawn together like magnets, meshed together between two palms, the yellow eyes above narrowed in concentration.

The hands spread. The light flickers. Disperses. And now suddenly, on this mountaintop of white, there is a howl, of a storm that brews, the sends daggers of white down through the air, against the ground and all who touch it.

Blue Maiden shivers, her skin and hair pelted by this same white. The snow melts against her, dribbles wetly into her body and she breathes out silver plumes of smoke-like breath, surprised by the sudden drop in temperature.

'Ah!' exclaims her companion. 'Sorry, sorry! My fault, my fault!'

They wave their hand and suddenly she is warm again, and the snow dances away from her in a flutter; it is though she is being surrounded by a thousand dove wings, all desperately trying to ignore the pillar of her shape.

'That's better!' Her companion throws out their arms with a wide smile. 'Maybe this will help make Aniki happy again! He loves watching Duels!' They bounce on their toes. 'You know what to do right?'

Blue Maiden gives them a look. 'I haven't forgotten.'

Her companion shrugs. 'I know, but human memories are _terrible_. I had to be sure! You're not as smart as me, after all!'

Blue Maiden clenches her teeth. _This isn't going to go the way you think_ , she wants to say. But she bites it back, swallows it down. It won't work and she isn't in the mood to get punished for it. No, she'll reserve her words for Playmaker and Ai when they get here.

There's more than one way to fight back, after all. And she owes it to her brother to try.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went back and forth on the Pandor and Ai sharing data scene...but apparently Aqua can get memories from Miya by placing her hands on her partner's chest...so...basically the Ignis are wizards. All AI in the series are.


	8. The Blue Yuki-onna

'It's cold, it's COOOOLD!'

Ai regrets everything. He wants to go back to the boat now, please. Where there are things like _heating_ and the actual _sun_ outside, warming the rich deck, and making his sensors jangle oh-so-pleasantly in response.

It's strange; Ai cannot die due to a rapid change of temperature, though it can in theory do all sorts of nasty things to the inner working of the SOLtiS body he's in. But it should be even harder on the net, where there are _precautions_ put in place to protect the sensory feedback a human can experience out here. Most of the time people register the temperature as pleasant, regardless of what the outside environment they've teleported themselves to dictates.

But _nooooo._ Now he senses a chill that bites thorough all his sensors, that even makes the stoic Playmaker beside him grit his teeth and hunker down beside him slightly. Ai squints, at the air and ground, his eyes picking up, or rather reading the lines of code poor Playmaker can't possibly witness. In an instant he understands how wild and unmonitored this area truly is; like an unsettled stew, the codes jumble together, erasing and rewriting the ones meant to keep the temperature at a suitable level.

'Oh-ho.' Ai chuckles to himself darkly. 'Someone fancies themselves as a cowboy – I've never seen such rowdy hack-WAH!'

Snow darts into his mouth, thanks to the blizzard that wraps itself around them and he sputters and coughs, feeling revolted by the sudden wetness that takes over the inside of his mouth. It just feels _wrong._

Playmaker of course, does not spare him a word of comfort. Though he does offer him a rather judging side-glance. But then he takes off at a firm and stubborn pace, as though he expects Ai to automatically follow and after a half-hearted grumble Ai _does._ But it's slow-going. For snow coats the mountain they are crawling up, crunching against their feet as they walk, with only the odd fir tree popping up to spark a welcome brush of colour in their line of sight.

But mostly there is nothing but slippery white, on the ground, over their toes, and battling against their shins. It even flecks the sky, whirling by in a storm so fierce that Ai sputters again and again, whenever he tries to rebuke his partner, the words swallowed up by the unwelcome wet feel of melting snow as it darts into his open mouth.

He gives up, reformats his clothes into a deep lavender set of mountaineering gear, and rapidly writes up as many warmth-simulating fail-safes within his own systems as he can. It barely makes a dent within this environment, practically a spit of defiance against the program here, but he does feel better. So a second later, he re-works the codes that generate his avatar, blending these new fail-safes into their protocols, causing soft gloves to land on his hands, images of interlinked Ignis-form Ai's wrapped round them, with each one sporting woollen hats and scarves of purple over their small Ignis bodies. Ai closes his fists, admiring this new pattern and feeling as though small candles have sputtered to life with his fingers, cradling them with a surly warmth. Or at least a not-cold feeling – which is probably as good as it is going to get.

With another thought, his cape becomes thicker, spreading out into a cloak that is ringed with velvet-black fur. He yanks the hood he adds onto it over his face a moment later.

'Playmaker,' he hisses, stamping over to his partner's side. 'Grant me temporary access to your avatar's customisation! It's not much, but I can stop you shivering with every step!'

Playmaker's eyes travel over him and his new look, but then after a second he nods.

Ai gets to work – away with the skin-tight bodysuit! And hello to bulky green clothing! He's even nice enough to pop an enormous woollen green elf's hat onto Playmaker's head with a friendly winking bobble of Ai's Ignis face dangling at the end. For good measure, he also pops on a set of cute furry earmuffs, more of Ai's faces stuck on them, and gloves with the exact same pattern as his own spread across them. With each new item, he takes care to wrap up codes designed to promote a sense of warmth, miniature firewalls designed to spit back out the numbing sense of coldness that glides through this area.

When he's done Playmaker casts him a rather bored look, even as Ai can't help but giggle from behind his hands.

'Thanks,' Playmaker says stiffly, and moves forward again.

Ai frowns. He expected...some anger, maybe even for Playmaker to protest at some of Ai's decorative choices. But no, just a boring 'thanks,' is what he's granted.

Ai pouts.

'I mean it,' Playmaker says after a moment. He tosses Ai a fond look from between his earmuffs, a small smile present on his face. 'Even with your poor taste in style, I am feeling warmer. It's appreciated.'

He turns and starts climbing again. And Ai trails after him, feeling the jump of his code inside, and the casual re-writing of some strings, the way they always do when inputting new data, or when he as to adjust to a new environment. Apparently Playmaker's smile qualifies as such.

Who is this human, to do such things to him? He's only...

**_A tool._ **

Ai frowns at that, disturbed. Even the kiss he had attempted to give Yusaku at the inn had been a calculated ploy to make Yusaku feel more protective of him, to draw him more tightly to the idea of Ai's survival.

Except...back then he suffered a similar spike in his code, had found himself caring more about the look in Yusaku's eyes, feeling thrilled by that yearning he saw in them, yearning for _him._ He remembers wanting to keep it there, stroke at it, to make it bolder and greener, wondering, no _wanting_ the feel of that mouth, calculating how to make his own warm and hot and wet in response, to make it pliable to Yusaku's, in just the way another human might savour the taste of...

Everything else had flown away. No calculations, just a pressing _need_ that wiggled its way inside, rewriting strings of code into something that chased after Yusaku's expression that wanted more, more, more...

Ai shivers, but not from the cold this time. For in some ways perhaps, out of the whole of humanity, Fujiki Yusaku is the scariest human of them all.

* * *

They're halfway up the mountain when they catch sight of a flash of blue that wavers and pulls through the wind like a flag. Like smoke it curls, a strain of colour that flickers like a flame about to go out, and so they pull themselves through the snow after it, their pace instinctively quickening.

The colour grows stronger and stronger as they draw closer, with more colours emerging beneath it, grey, pink, white, all accompanied by the glaring shape of a face above. With one more stumble forward, they're suddenly in a clearing of some sort, with no more snow to accost them; no, now's there's just the howl of the gale outside, as it spins round them in a whirling hurricane of white. As though they've reached the eye of the storm.

In front of them stretches an ice-white plateau of snow, the powder of it so crisp and finely dusted that it gleams like millions of tiny crystals.

And across this glittering field, glares a young woman, her left arm folded in front of her as though ready and prepared to hold the branching form of Duel Disk.

'Glad to see you could make it, Playmaker,' she says coolly. Though her frown softens a little as she witnesses the hat that dangles half-way down his back and the way it attempts to stretch over his spikey hair.

Ai frowns as well. Her arms are bare; she wears no protective clothing, nothing that would hide a code to keep her warm. And yet there's a slight shimmer in the air surrounding her, a stabilising force as though someone's devised a shield to keep the bite of the lower temperature away.

Playmaker gazes at her, something warm in his gaze. 'Blue Maiden,' he says in return in place of greeting. Ai is impressed at how steady his partner's voice is however; it's as though he had never spent hours exhausting himself trying to find a clue to her disappearance barely a day ago.

Blue Maiden smiles sadly and then turns to face Ai.

'I'm not sure if I can say if I'm glad to see you or not,' she says pointedly. 'But I suppose I can be content with the fact you're alive. Despite everything you did to me and my brother, I never wanted you dead.'

Ai blinks. 'Thanks?' he offers up uncertainly.

That causes the frown on her face to appear and _uh-oh_. Ai really doesn't like the fact that Playmaker has so many sharp acquaintances.

'I guess it is true,' she says after a moment. 'You don't remember anything. They really were right...'

'Who was?' Playmaker asks sharply.

And Blue Maiden's sad smile returns. 'You already know who,' she replies. 'You're smart enough to guess.'

Playmaker grimaces. 'You're working for Aniki?' he asks sharply, though there's a hint of concern to it. 'What do they have on you? Their actions with the SOLtiS are a clear threat to Sol Technologies and your brother's reputation; you would never choose to fight against him!'

'You're right,' Blue Maiden says, closing her eyes. 'But regardless of what I think or believe: here we are.' She opens her eyes, and this time there's something in her eyes, something sharp and gleaming and perhaps a little ambitious. 'You can guess what comes next, right? That I won't let you through unless you win a duel against me? Or rather, the program keeping us here won't let us leave until one of us wins.'

Playmaker tenses. 'That's all? No other stakes?'

Blue Maiden smirks. She even raises an arm in a half-formed shrug. 'Sorry; that would make for a nice story, but Aniki has mixed feelings about Ai.' She fixes Ai with a sharp look.

He folds his arms in response. 'Then they can come tell me personally, instead of shoving one of their minions at me.'

Blue Maiden stares at him a moment. Her fist trembles. Then she speaks. 'They get it from you, you know,' she states evenly; perhaps too evenly. There's something ice-cold in her voice, as though she doesn't want any emotion to seep in and give her away. 'Your love for drama, for setting yourself up as the final boss- **AHH!** '

Blue Maiden jolts mid-sentence, as a crackle of blue electricity dances over her body. She slumps to her knees for a moment, her hand buckling stubbornly against the snow, crushing the powder of it into white puffs of smoke as she pants furiously, hair hanging down over her back like a limp rag.

Playmaker grits his teeth, looking like he wants to march over there and forcibly log her out. But Ai quickly snags him by the wrist as Blue Maiden stubbornly stumbles back to her feet.

'Easy there, Playmaker-sama,' Ai cautions. 'I don't think Aniki likes having their hostage unveiling anything about them.'

Blue Maiden spits out a harsh breath. 'That's right. So for now, all I'll say is _this_.' She straightens, planting her feet firmly in the snow. 'If I win, you get to go past me; but if I win, you get to come and meet Aniki as their toy.' She grimaces. 'The way I've been their's these past few weeks.' Her eyes meets Ai's. 'And then Ai will have to run away and find another human to hide behind.'

* * *

Ai stands to one side. He feels excitement well and bubble up inside him as monsters explode onto the field and cards are set down, the brown backs of them flashing up against the snow like miniature flying carpets.

Yusaku's deck has always felt weird to him; he recognises each monster as it bursts onto the field perhaps on an instinctive level. Their data, as it clashes against the snowy landscape sends up a conflicting response in his own, some old sub-routine of a system attempting to access anything that resembles a memory, and failing.

He feels the same conflict, but to a much lesser extent when Blue Maiden summons her monsters. It's a puzzling sensation and one he's not sure he likes; so he stuffs it down, and tries to enjoy the Duel.

'Come on Playmaker!' he cheers, miming a few punches. 'Get her!'

They promptly ignore him. Oh well. Playmaker's got her on the ropes, which is to be expected; Decode Talker has burst into life oh-so-nicely in his main monster zone and it's co-linked to some other Cyberse monsters to boost its attack points...so it's only a matter of time...

Ai smiles as Decode Talker ruthlessly takes down Blue Maiden's Marincess Marbled Rock monster, savouring the way she flinches as her life points wobble down to an unimpressive 1500. She manages to play a trap card in response though, Marincess Snow, that allows here to summon a lower level link monster from her extra deck.

'Appear! Marincess Coral Anemone!'

Ai cocks his head as the rather vivid yellow and orange coloured creature spins and unfurls its tentacled dress onto the field. 'Ohhh,' he says, eyes flashing, as he watches Blue Maiden stubbornly call out her turn, and draw a new card. 'What other fishies are you going to drop into the pool this time? I hope it looks a bit more cool than Miss Octopus Lady here...'

He flinches a little as the monster seems to give him a snide side-eye. With just one glance he feels a tonne of scorn, disapproval and a heightened urge to flee. It feels strangely familiar.

Blue Maiden meanwhile has frozen, her mouth set in a grim line. She stares down at the card in her hand a moment, and briefly, pain seems to flash in her eyes.

'...You might regret asking that, Ai,' she murmurs softly. 'Though you'd regret it more if you truly remembered anything.'

Ai watches, unsurprised as she uses Marincess Coral Anemone's effect to summon another Marincess monster, Blue Tang, from her Graveyard. What does however, come as a shock, is the fact that she doesn't use these two monsters on her field to summon a stronger Link Monster. Instead she chooses to summon a new monster from her hand:

'I summon Hiyari Ignister!'

And Ai blinks. He blinks again. And misses the way Playmaker suddenly tenses, and the low way he rumbles out, **'where did you get that card?'** as though she's gone digging through someone's grave to get it.

Because Ai is busy staring at Hiyari, at its teal-blue body and while it's just a gelatine blob, with no face, something about it makes him want to...he's not sure. Hug it? Laugh at it? Wait for it to scold him? Ai frowns, a small partition of data unfurling in him as a blitzed video file of something, no, someone blue, with a calm voice, one that's spiked with a little worry, attempts to talk to him.

It's a little jarring to be honest, so he shakes it off. Enough to realise Blue Maiden is talking again.

'What makes you think someone couldn't extrapolate the data he used to make the Ignister cards?' she asks quietly.

Playmaker gives her a hard look. 'Nobody human could do that,' he says with utter conviction. 'And what would be their motive?'

Blue Maiden gives a miserable shrug. 'Why don't you try to win and find out?'

Playmaker's fist clenches, and Ai watches, a bored pout forming on his face. All this talking instead of Dueling, is _tedious._ So he does the only sensible thing he can. He closes his hands round his mouth and yells: 'GET ON WITH IT!' With exasperation clearly colouring his every word.

'Alright,' Blue Maiden says levelly, without so much as sparing him a glance. She raises her hand, fingers splayed toward the sky and the whirling wind around them.

'I activate Hiyari's effect! By tributing another Cyberse monster, I can add one level 5 or higher Cyberse monster to my hand! I choose to tribute Marincess Coral Anemone.' The yellow Marincess disappears, scattering into a graceful swirl of blue particles, and Blue Maiden gives Playmaker a meaningful look. 'Guess who I'm choosing.' She clears her throat. 'And since it was a Link monster I tributed, I can add one 'A.I.'s Ritual' to my hand!'

Ai perks up at the name of the spell, and when she plays it, he can't help but clap his hands together excitedly and let out an 'ahhhh' of appreciation as a picture of him wearing a witch's hat flashes into view.

'Appear!' Blue Maiden roars, lifting her arm to the sky as she tributes a card; Ai's quick eyes catches sight of a long blue serpentine body emblazoned on its side as it's sent to the graveyard.

'Lithe, long, the Leviathan that sails through dreams in remembrance of those we've lost!' Still, there's something truly wretched in her expression as she directs her hand down towards the field. 'Water Leviathan Ignister!'

And then an exact copy of the other Ignister monster that was just tributed sails out, to arch its neck against the backdrop of snow.

And Ai _stares_ at it, at the scales that line its belly, at the feathered crests that arc from its sides like dragonfly wings. There's something pretty about it, but harsh and fierce too, and he's on the edge of understanding something about it, he _is_...

But the Duel doesn't wait for him to organise his thoughts and with a few curt words, Blue Maiden declares Water Leviathan's effect; to return all of Playmaker's monsters with less than 2300 attack to the hand. And in one fell swoop, suddenly Decode Talker is not looking so mighty at all, all its attack points dribbling away and each monster co-linked to it is ripped away from the field...and now it gets even worse.

Ai starts cringing, covering his face with his hand and peering out between the gaps in his fingers, as Blue Maiden activates another effect, reducing Decode Talker's attack to zero AND returning every single Link Monster in her graveyard back to the extra deck.

'AI CAN'T WATCH!' he wails, eyes glued to the widening spaces between each digit.

'Be quiet,' Playmaker tells him tensely.

And with a smile, Blue Maiden declares battle.

Ai immediately draws his hands from his face and starts idly counting his fingers. '2300 attack points from that big snake, plus 400 from that little blue jelly-pudding there, and 1500 from Miss human-looking Dory over there and...oh no, that's it? That's way too much!'

Playmaker stands still, snow flying past in the background, unruffled and far, far too calm. If this were a scene from an anime he'd be hopelessly cool. As it stands it's _not_ , and so Ai snarls at him to: **'DO SOMETHING! SHOW ME WHY I WASN'T WRONG TO PUT MY FAITH IN YOU!'**

He's not entirely lost his senses; there's a set card there by Playmaker's feet, lying unobtrusively on the field, a card that maybe...

Playmaker doesn't smile. He doesn't smirk. He simply pushes his hand out, arm stretched, and fingers spread.

'I play my trap card, Diamond Dust! It destroys as many water monsters on the field as possible, then inflicts 500 damage to my opponent for each water monster destroyed and sent to the Graveyard by this effect!'

Ai's eyes widen. His hands drop to his sides. And he watches dumbly, as that card, the card he gave to Yusaku back on the boat as a _joke,_ promptly creates a small silver blizzard that roars across the field. It pelts Blue Maiden's monsters with razor-sharp snowflakes, each segregated edge glinting in a jewel-like fashion as the monsters burst into bright blue particles and disintegrate and Blue Maiden goes sprawling across the field with a scream, her life-points rattling down to zero.

Ai stares at Playmaker. 'You used my card,' he says. He's stunned, _stunned,_ that Playmaker, the legendary hero placed such a card in his deck on a whim. It may have made sense to keep it in there if he had known for sure that Blue Maiden and her water monsters would be out here waiting for him but...he didn't.

Playmaker stares straight past him. 'Yes,' he says simply, and then stalks forward to try and raise Blue Maiden back on her feet.

Ai stares at his back, as his partner, as he asks Blue Maiden how they can help her and where her body is in real life. And then, after a moment, Ai blushes.

* * *

Picture this: a space in the network, and erupting into colour, go giant structures, ones designed primarily for fun. And someone giggles, spins on their heel, and claps their hands in excitement. Before working hard to create more wonders.

'How childish,' says their partner.

The miracle-worker frowns. 'You're just jealous,' they declare stoutly. 'Because you're boring, like all humans are!'

Their partner scoffs. And then they practically dissolve, their body aflutter, particles of themselves seeking to escape their form. They grunt. Maybe squeal in pain.

'Well,' says the AI by their side, watching as they finally manage to transport themselves away. 'I guess you're not like all of them. Not anymore.'

But they don't sound happy about it. Not in the slightest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: I CAN'T WRITE DUELS. At least not full ones. But I kinda of understand how a Marincess deck works and how it might, _might_ fuction with Water Leviathan and the cards needed to summon it.
> 
> And I love Diamond Dust. Love it. And not just because Rio from Zexal used it once. It's actually fairly useful in the right situation.
> 
> ...Everyone knows what a Yuki-onna is, right?


	9. Theme Park Date

Ai stares at Playmaker's back again, brooding. Now that Blue Maiden has lost, the storm has cleared up as though to produce a path for them through the sky and it's easy enough to fly out through it on their boards with Blue Maiden flying out in front to guide them, her face carefully set. Ai pities her because she doesn't know where she is in real life, her poor human brain failing to recall the many twists and turns of the van a SOLtiS bundled her inside one afternoon took. She wasn't even allowed to keep her phone, one that could have sent a signal to Akira telling him her location.

So yes, Ai pities her. He pities all humans. Fancy not having any sort of navigation system built into your body to orientate yourself!

Blue Maiden casts them a look over her shoulder, hair cascading in a series of ruffled blue waves around her neck. It's pretty, and Ai finds himself curling a finger into one of his own locks thoughtfully in response. His hair is beautiful too, and he likes the jagged cuffs of black it creates when the wind tosses it, but it doesn't have quite the same, smooth artful tumble of her own...

He shakes himself out of it as Blue Maiden starts talking. 'I don't think you'll like what you find,' she warns them. 'I'm just sorry I can't say more.'

Ai waves a hand. 'Eh, don't be. I wouldn't like being barbequed every time I tried to be helpful either.'

Blue Maiden's eyes pass over to him. 'You're different from the last time we met,' she says quietly. 'I guess that's because you don't remember everything; you're not so eaten up by anger and pain anymore.' Her brow furrows as her gaze turns troubled. 'Are you certain about this? You might be better off leaving and not contacting any of us again; maybe with a fresh start you could find a way to be happy without hurting anyone, including yourself.'

Ai stares at her. 'So...lose sight of everything I was? And abandon everything that might once have been important to me, you mean?'

Blue Maiden sighs. 'I just don't want to see history repeat itself.' Her eyes flicker away from him, as though just seeing him there in front of her, _hurts._

'Besides,' Ai adds with a grin, whipping round to seek out Playmaker's blank stare. 'Playmaker-chan would be sad if I never popped up in front of him again, right?' He flies closer, letting the engines that power their boards almost jostle. 'I mean, you love me enough to slip a relatively useless card into your deck just because I gave it to you!'

'It helped me win the Duel,' Playmaker states evenly. 'So I wouldn't call it useless.'

Ai scowls. 'Oh, stop it! It's not like your deck is cluttered with Water monsters the way hers was!' He points at Blue Maiden, who's watching them with something like curiosity in her eyes. 'Any other opponent and it would have been useless!' He puts his hands on his hips. 'I should actually be mad with you, for taking such a risk!'

Playmaker stares ahead, jaw set and with a rather angry look in his eyes. 'It was just a feeling I had,' he says. 'This isn't the first time you've gifted me with cards. And they've never once let me down.' He shrugs. 'I chose to place my trust in that once again; that's all.'

Ai glances away. His cheeks feel hot, his code has turned into a whining, whinging, jangling mess again and he feels stupidly full of it. And he doesn't understand it. Not really.

'What a nice thing to say,' he says after a moment, carefully looking away. But even so, he can feel Playmaker's eyes locking onto his face. 'You better be careful not to talk to me like that in front of your fans. They'll get jealous.'

Blue Maiden sighs. 'You don't know how right you are,' she mutters. 'Though perhaps the situation is reversed...we've arrived, by the way. There's a portal that will lead back to the person you want to see.'

She points down below, where a winking blue portal has now appeared inside a cave that's embedded within the mountain. It spins and glows, a whole wormhole of light, pure white light, burning out like a star as it drags it's wavering spiral of a pattern over the landscape like the leaking tendrils of a galaxy churning within the cave's mouth. But Blue Maiden dives down without fear, the white light letting off a few glistening blue sparkles as her arm sinks inside. And then the the rest of her follows.

Ai looks at Playmaker. 'This is the part of the movie where people scream at the good guys not to fall into the obvious trap, right?'

Playmaker doesn't answer. He just stares and then dives down straight after Blue Maiden. As though he expects Ai to follow.

Well...he's not wrong. What else is Ai going to do? Hang back? _Alone?_

With a grumble, Ai glides down into the wormhole and its eager, grasping light, instantly falling through a tunnel of data until...

Ai blinks. The white light clears, divides. Into metallic strips of colours, and also tiny, blazing neon flares of them, a million neon lights, like fierce pinpricks. This new virtual sector features a floating island, the rock travelling through a navy sky and on that island is...

...a theme park.

Ai's eyes instantly brighten, his mouth falling open into an awed smile. He sees it all, the rides, the lights adorning every slide of metal, ever strip of a race track, every single stall and ride. Lights, candy-floss, _lights_ , gold-fish scooping, _lights,_ a rollar-coaster, _lights, lights, **LIGHTS**!_ Far, far too many neon-lights...no, scratch that, make that just the right number of lights! You can never have too many lights!

And thankfully, as they fly down to the centre of this inviting park, the temperature around here actually feels normal. So with barely a thought, Ai's hair suddenly escapes his fur-lined hood as both it and the rest of his winter clothing winks out of existence. He jumps off his vanishing board and spins round to trail a lingering finger over the adorable bobble of Playmaker's hat, and then with a grin, he dismantles the codes built into his partner's clothing, allowing them to break down and away to unveil Playmaker's usual green bodysuit.

'You should get earmuffs in the real world,' he states off-hand. 'You'd look adorable.'

Playmaker doesn't reply, the absolute bore, instead running his eyes first over the lines of the nearby ferris wheel, then the helter-skelter, and finally the haunted house. Not that Ai can blame him. Even if it weren't for the fact they're in enemy territory, everything here is just so bright and colourful and fun-looking! Ai simply _can't_ look away!

He does jump a bit though, as hears the whine of motorized wheels and then everywhere, little robots with cartoonish big eyes, formed out of fridges and blenders and all sorts of other appliances, whizz out, to cheer and push toys and board games at them. One even attempts to shove a strange blue doll at Blue Maiden. She accepts it with a grimace, letting it hang loosely from her fingers, an entire arm's length away. As though she doesn't want it anywhere near her body.

A spike of unease travels through Ai as he sees the shape of the doll, its pink eyes and pigtails, and that feeling only sharpens as he sees strange dark blue patterns crawling over its form. Patterns a lot like the purple lines that course over his original black Ignis body. But that sense of wrongness is disrupted a moment later by a loud shout of:

'ANIKI!'

There's some hustling, a few grunts as someone slightly smaller than him, about the size of Blue Maiden, starts shoving their way through the throng of robots. 'Hey! Make way! _I'm_ the leader here!' This someone stumbles out into the open, almost tripping over their own feet before they abruptly right themselves. 'YAHOO! SURPRI- **AI** -SE!'

The SOLtiS throws out their arms, a bright smile painted over their face as fireworks immediately explode above them in the sky as though on cue, each halo of light blossoming into a pattern that resembles the winking face of a small Roboppi model. Ai stares, nonplussed, as the fireworks die with a crackle of sound and the SOLtiS in front of them frowns at his lack of response.

'Eh? Did my joke fall flat? But you love making puns with your name!' They tilt their head to one side, data flittering within their yellow iris, as their long, light turquoise hair tumbles over their shoulder at the motion. It's not as rumpled as Blue Maiden's, slightly straighter, with two decorative plaits branching round the back of their skull to join up under a Roboppi-head style shaped clip – and the pattern they form reminds him of those wide tusk-like contours placed on the Roboppi model's face.

Not bad. Although the rest of the SOLtiS is styled rather plainly, wearing an oversized hoodie, long enough to be mistaken for a dress, over pink leggings and short, ankle-length grey boots. It reminds him a little of Blue Maiden's outfit, only much bulkier and less feminine. After a moment, the SOLtiS in question knocks their fist against their head.

'Ah! That's right! You _can't_ remember anything! No wonder you didn't get it!' They twirl on the spot. 'It's okay though! Because I'm so smart now, I'll remember for you! You did ask me to take of you when you grew old after all!' They knock their fist against their face again. 'Not that AI have old age! But since you're acting like an old human, when they break down and forget stuff, I guess this sort of counts, right?'

They dance forward, eyes alight, almost demonically so as they try to seize his hand and drag him forward and a flash of memory strikes Ai then, of crazed red eyes. It causes such a feeling of guilt to well up inside him, so thick and fast, that he rips his hand away and steps back.

The SOLtiS drops its outstretched hand immediately, something ugly flickering over their face. 'That's lame, Aniki,' they say, their voice suddenly soft and almost menacing. 'And after I worked so hard to make you better! To get myself smarter! To become the Aniki of all those other stupid SOLtiS who got smarter too!' They motion to themselves. 'I even made myself older so you wouldn't look down on me anymore! Not like the way you looked down on _her_.' They point a finger at Blue Maiden contemptuously, who stiffens, her fingers clutching the doll reflexively. 'Maybe I could even replace Aqua now?'

Blue Maiden hisses out a breath between her teeth, her fingers bone-white against the blue of the doll's body. And Playmaker quickly steps forward, as though to draw the SOLtiS's attention away from her.

'Roboppi,' he says gravely. 'What happened to you? Were you really the one who took Blue Maiden?'

Roboppi pouts, crossing their arms in a sulk. 'I had to! I wanted to get more data on Aqua!' They shrug. 'Aniki was resisting me when I tried to speed up his reconstruction! He even tried to encrypt his memories when I accessed them to see if I could find something there to help with that! He's so stubborn!'

They uncross their arms, hands landing on their hips firmly, as they hunch their shoulders and glower at Ai fiercely. And then abruptly, like a cloud sailing past the sun, their mood brightens. 'Ah, but he was still pretty stupid back then, so I'm not sure if he meant to! But all I managed to get was stuff with him and the other Ignis and the data on his deck.' They shrug. 'And since Aqua was the one always trying to keep him safe and in check like I used to have to do, I thought if I evolved to be more like her, he would listen to me again!'

A puzzled frown crosses Playmaker's face. 'Evolved?'

Roboppi bounces on their heels. 'Yep! I was one with the universe! It was really relaxing. But after a while I got all bored, and when I was bored, I started to think again...I think it was the Ignis programming I absorbed, because it woke me up again like Aniki's did!' They made a face. 'And I guess I was wrong a little, about humans, because I found one that had a really neat idea on how to stop me from breaking down again!' They shrug and giggle.

Blue Maiden looks like she wants to say something badly. But she keeps silent.

Roboppi smiles at Ai. 'Sorry Aniki! I know you really hated the human but she did help, even if she is still an idiot! And I figured _you_ wouldn't mind if I were a little mean to Blue Maiden! She failed Aqua just like Soulburner failed Flame and hurt you!'

Blue Maiden's fingers tremble slightly, wearing deep creases into the doll, the doll of...

Ai pushes away the suspicion, finding himself softening at the sight of Blue Maiden's clenched teeth, her narrowed, angry eyes. Because...that means she cares, right? About...Aqua...

It helps that Playmaker's eyes have also zeroed in on the same thing as well, and it's making his jaw tense, weighting down the frown on his face and transforming it into an ugly scowl.

So...maybe it's time for Ai's magnificent acting skills to come into play!

'You're right!' he chirps brightly, forcing himself to hop forward and take Roboppi's hand in a playful manner. 'I mean, I don't remember, obviously, but since you do, you're _definitely_ smart enough to have made the right call! So tell me, your poor, stupid Ai-chan Aniki; what did you do to make Blue Maiden cry as payback?!'

Roboppi beams, looking stupidly happy at the fact that they now have Ai's hand closing over their own. 'Oh, wow, you really are stupid without your memories, Aniki! Otherwise you'd definitely know! So I'll give you a hint!' Their other hand comes up, cupping a ball of bright pink data.

Ai inspects it cautiously for a moment, before downloading it into himself with a tentative prod of his finger across its gleaming surface. And-

_Screams. Wails. Snuffling sobs. A human, a small one, no, a child, curling into the corner of a gleaming white room with no mattress, not even a futon to ease their bones. Data, a mass of it overwhelms his system, and he remembers awareness, or leaning how to re-write and delete portions of his data, how to make a memory that could function and not become overwhelmed with the information constantly streaming into him – 'that's why the rooms have to be white,' a human man says, one that works and tweaks his code in another room, 'they're like babies, we can't overload them'-_

Ai wretches his hand away, images of a crying six year old Yusaku sweeping over his systems.

'I copied it,' Roboppi chirps, unheeding of the emotional turmoil inside. 'From the parts of you I could get! And the human lady gave me the extra data I needed to recreate that weird Lost Incident experiment with Blue Maiden! Well...almost. It's not exactly the same!' They puff up their chest, looking awfully proud of themself. 'I figured, since I went all weird in my Last Duel with Soulburner that I needed to be more and more like the Ignis and so I've reformatted parts of my programming from the data I've gotten from watching her!'

Playmaker's eyes widen, the green of them wild and blown, almost eclipsing the pupil. Understanding flies into them, the same understanding that rushes into Ai, that makes him match up all the recorded flinches and subdued body language of a much younger and more vulnerable Yusaku, to the way Blue Maiden now stands still like a statue, eyes buried beneath her bangs. Twinges of recognition prick and stab into him as she looks down and away, clutching her doll with fingers that flinch and curl and tighten at every word Roboppi speaks.

For a moment, nobody says anything. And then a snarl escapes Playmaker's throat. 'HOW DARE YOU!' He steps forward, and Ai has never seen him like this, his brow cut into so many furrows that it's like it's become decorated by a small mountain range. 'Inflicting a pain you can't understand, that you haven't lived through, on someone else, so thoughtlessly!' And Ai swears, _swears_ he can hear Playmaker's teeth grind as his eyes dig into Roboppi. 'It's unforgivable! Now let her go!'

Roboppi tilts their head to the side, a strangely bored look appearing on their face. '' _Unforgivable',_ huh? ' _Let her go,'_ huh?' Those yellow eyes narrow. 'Is the pain of a human worth more than the death of an AI? Like mine and Aniki's?' They whirl round, a slightly unhinged giggle flying out from their mouth as they do so. 'Humans are so funny! I'm glad I'm with my new human partner instead of you, Mas- _ter_.' This last word is sang out with a strangely friendly tone, long practised and almost cheerful, so much so that it makes Ai do a double take.

'...Yes,' says Blue Maiden softly, still staring at the ground. 'You and your new human partner suit each other very well.' With visible effort, she raises her head. And despite the tremble in her fingers, her gaze is firm, reaching out to hook into Playmaker's own. 'You both think you deserve to sit on _thrones_.' She closes her eyes, as though in bored dismissal. 'Even if they might have been ripped away – or _dismissed-_ for a reason.' Her eyes open again in a fierce glare.

And Playmaker looks back at her for a moment. And then gives a stiff, barely noticeable nod.

Ai glances between the pair of them, utterly baffled. What is he missing here? Some sort of weird code?

Roboppi sniffs. 'That's a mean trick, Blue Maiden.' They wag a finger at her, a wry smirk pulling at the corner of their mouth. 'I think that demands a punishment!'

Blue Maiden starts to tense – but the next second the Aqua doll is sent sprawling from her fingers as electricity crackles over her form in yellow, jagged halos of light that sink into her avatar and send her screaming to the ground.

'STOP IT!'

Playmaker yells at Roboppi, every inch of him furious as he stalks into their space, and Ai stares at Blue Maiden, at her tightly closed eyes, at the clench in her jaw, her bared teeth and struggling limbs, seeing them all as larger echoes of the memories that have been rolled back into his head, of six year old Yusaku whenever he lost a Duel and was punished for it.

He...Ai...he came from pain like this.

Something in him snaps and he snags Playmaker by the wrist before he can do something stupid, like touch Roboppi or shake them.

'Wait,' he says tensely. 'Don't be an idiot.'

Roboppi smiles. 'That's right!' They chirp. 'You're only a human and a human-'

Ai whirls, earrings blurring at the motion, and promptly backhands Roboppi across the face.

There's silence. Playmaker stiffens in shock and Roboppi...Roboppi staggers back a step and shakily, brings a hand up to cover the bruise rapidly forming along the curve of their cheek.

The dance of electrical light over Blue Maiden's avatar flickers once, then ceases. And Ai smiles. But there's nothing nice about it.

'Hurts, doesn't it?' he says softly. 'The shock of pain you're not prepared for can scramble the living system of anyone, human or otherwise – in your case, I guess it can make you temporally cancel a program you're currently running.' He jerks a thumb towards Blue Maiden as she gasps.

'And yet,' he continues breezily, 'it's nothing compared to what you've been giving her.' He tenses, already setting up a few programs of his own as Roboppi's eyes narrow, a red outline now running round them like a heavily-marked tattoo.

'So what?' Roboppi hisses. 'She deserves it! She hurt you! She couldn't protect Aqua!' They throw an ugly look Playmaker's way. 'He and Soulburner deserve it too! But I need to be fair, so she has to experience the same thing they did, before I can punish them all!'

Ai's mouth can never run dry. He can never feel the stutter, the skip of rhythm in a heartbeat, as fear invades his senses. But there's still a horrible tension inside him, that feels cold and tight, as Roboppi's eyes narrow on his partner.

'No,' they say lowly. 'My old master is worse than the other two. Because he actually **killed** you!'

Playmaker stiffens even more; Ai feels a part of him analyse it almost coolly, with the same focus he gives every partition of sensory data his systems register. He watches the way Playmaker's jaw clenches, making the line of his mouth jump slightly, and the way his eyes widen. His partner doesn't _express_ fear in the same way those actors on soap operas do, but it's there's in every tense line of his face, all the same.

'Oh,' replies Ai lowly. 'Is that so?'

'Ai,' his partner breathes, fear still in his eyes as he gazes at him, something beseeching in his tone.

Ai takes a step back from him, watching as the fear grows a little wilder in Playmaker's eyes in response; it actually makes him take a step after him, makes his hand shoot out as though to catch Ai _as if he ever actually could_. Because Ai can still flee, can materialise in a new portion of the network in the time it takes for Playmaker to take another step towards him.

Ai can picture it, runs a small, quick-fire simulation of the way Playmaker's expression will shatter if his hand reaches to curl on Ai's shoulder, only to find nothing there the moment he does. Honestly, it's _that_ more than anything, that makes him hesitate. Besides; it's not like Ai didn't have his suspicions already. This only confirms them.

'Oi,' he says, a little roughly. 'Playmaker: be honest with yourself!' He pauses. 'How do you really feel about me?'

Playmaker's hand freezes. Ai watches his partner's face, sees him blink, the fear shifting into something resembling confusion, as the brow above twists slightly.

Ai narrows his eyes. Takes another step back. He doesn't want to leave but...

'You're the most important bond I have.'

Ai blinks. Playmaker's hand drops to his side, fingers curling into a fist that squeezes tight, as though to prevent itself from unrolling back into a hand that wants to reach out and touch.

'One that I never want to see break or disappear again.' Playmaker's eyes are back to their regular size again, filled with determination. 'I know there's a lot you don't understand or remember; but even if you disappear again, I'll find you. I won't ever stop.' There's a wry twitch to his mouth now. 'Because you're the most important person to me, in my life.'

'Wow,' Roboppi whispers, a watery sheen to their eyes as their hands twist and clench together eagerly. 'I've just witnessed something awesome!'

Ai feels something tighten in his chest alongside those words; for he agrees completely. 'Alright,' he says after a moment, fighting the part of him that wants to curl up and squeal. 'It's not your typical love confession, but I'll take it.' He turns back to Roboppi. 'Oi, Roboppi-chan!' He grins. 'Let's negotiate!'

Roboppi blinks. And Ai points at him dramatically. 'You've kept the princess locked up in the tower long enough!'

Blue Maiden makes a face as she starts to clamber back onto her feet, but Ai ignores her.

'Come on, let's be sportsman-like about this! Let's talk, one AI to another!'

Roboppi looks at him. And after a moment, raises their arm, a Roboppi head-shaped Duel Disk springing to life on their wrist.

'I think _you're_ the princess here, Aniki,' they state grimly as Ai blinks in confusion. 'And you need me to save you! You shouldn't be with a human! They'll only let you down and make you sad again!'

Playmaker looks angry at that remark. 'All living things experience sadness,' he says, brandishing his own Duel Disk. 'It's part of life; part of the change and growth they go through it order to keep living. To do otherwise is to stagnate.' He narrows his eyes. 'If I win, you have to let Blue Maiden go.'

Roboppi grins. 'And if I win...you're mine!'

Ai blinks again. Has he miscalculated?

* * *

Ai has miscalculated.

He watches, horror filling him, as Playmaker's life-points trickle down to a dangerously low level. For Roboppi is ruthless, their monsters strange, towering apparitions of twisted metal tangled up into the shape of dragons and butterflies, like abstract art made of wires. The iron pipes of their skeleton rattle rattle and the colourful cables of their tendons work perfectly together, all arranged in the shape of a metallic lattice that breathes and flutters.

'You should be proud, Aniki!' Roboopi tells him gleefully, 'I took pointers from you!'

What? What, what, what-

'I created all new cards based on that last Duel you had! We dragged it out of you!'

What, what, what-oh Playmaker, he's so sorry.

Playmaker pants, bent and bruised. He's done well, so well for a human, and Ai didn't doubt it, could never, but, but, but- has he miscalculated?

'It's okay,' Roboppi says, a harsh light in their eyes. 'I'll take good care of Playmaker's data. Him and Blue Maiden both! I'll punish them both for hurting you!'

Ai's fists clench. _No_ , something dark and harsh inside him, states. **No**. If Playmaker is to be gobbled down, swallowed by an AI, there's only **one** who should get that privilege. And it isn't Roboppi.

He makes his decision as soon as he realises Roboppi is a sentence away from declaring battle; there's no card on Playmaker's side of the field, set or otherwise, ready to protect him, so he has to act fast. He turns to Blue Maiden, who stands nearby, fingers twisted into her arms, clenching tight as though to draw non-existent blood.

'Here,' he mutters, fingers gliding across her Duel Disk, a faint blue glitter detaching from his digital skin and falling, with a flutter, into the pink, opaque glass below. 'A present. Make good use of it.'

She starts, giving him a brief look of surprise, but Ai is already turning, senses on overdrive. He looks at the theme park around them, really looks, at the code bubbling away inside each one. And then casually, he unveils the virus he's been building at the back of his mind, the one that seems to pull out of his thoughts oh-so-naturally, like a sponge, soaking down all the nasty data he's been feeding it the last couple of minutes. Then, with a dramatic push of his hand, he throws it out.

A black blob, its tail ending in a demon-like point lands on the nearest roller coaster. It lets out a low growl. Then immediately begins multiplying. In a few moments it is swarming over the coaster, the tracks buckling and creaking under the mountain of-

- _Linkguriboh-_

The name springs out of Ai's mind in a rush of inspiration, as they swarm over the ride like a mass of furious ants, a few bubbling over to drop down on the candyfloss stall nearby, where the process repeats. The data of the roller coaster starts to break-down, falling into illegible clumps as the virus churning inside each black body eats away at the structural integrity beneath.

It takes mere seconds, but suddenly nearly half the park is under attack.

'MY COUNTRY!'

Roboppi has already moved onto the battle phase of the Duel, their dragon is already charging across the field, but Roboppi isn't paying attention anymore. No, now they're staring round in outrage, watching the neon lights flicker out desperately, as they're crushed beneath the bulk of the multiple Linkguriboh hopping up and down on them. Metal creaks, rides sway, and the little appliance workers below, shriek and spin, wheels falling off as the Linkguribohs mercilessly jump on top of them, wrestling them to the ground with the sheer weight of their numbers.

'STOP THE DUEL!' thunders Ai, racing onto the field. He's not suicidal enough to throw himself directly into the path of an oncoming dragon with car headlights for eyes, and yet...

Without thinking – for no logical reason- he throws himself in front of Playmaker, arms spread wide.

It's stupid. It's going to hurt. And then Playmaker's arms seize him round the waist to spin them both round, his green back now wholly exposed to the dragon's roaring jaws. Those arms fasten tightly round his sides, as though to prevent Ai from slipping round and in front of him again, and Ai finds himself staring into angry green eyes, the rage in them searing into his own.

Ai swallows. Despite not needing to.

And then something big and blue and majestic sweeps onto the field, a crystal heart sparkling within her chest. The monster whirls round, the trailing ends of a gleaming turquoise shape flaring into view, as one large hand closes round the end of an elegant blade. The curves catch the light as it swings round and cleaves through part of the oncoming dragon's jaw. It's not much, but it's enough to halt the monster, to make it wobble in its tracks.

And from the side of the field, Blue Maiden grins, exuberant. 'Go Marincess Wonder Heart!' she whispers fiercely. Her grin doesn't falter, even when Marincess Wonder Heart crumbles into gleaming partitions of blue data moments later, as a result of illegally entering another person's duel.

Roboppi delivers her a look of poisonous hate. 'That was stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid! Now I have to punish you even more!'

But Blue Maiden's grin sharpens into a confident smirk. 'No,' she declares. 'You're the one who's going to get punished this time!'

She gestures behind her and Roboppi's eyes widen as a wave of black crash onto the field, the tsunami of Linkguriboh rapidly swarming over the oncoming dragon. It quickly buckles under the weight of them, roars as the screws fall from its spine, from the hinges that keeps its wings open to the sky. Seconds later, it's nothing more than a hunk of junk, crumpled wires that are eaten away, disappearing into the ether.

'YOU CHEATED, YOU CHEATED!' Roboppi stamps their foot. They kick the ground, fists clenched and glare out at both Blue Maiden and Ai, every inch of them a thwarted child.

But Blue Maiden just stares at them coldly, lifting her chin regally, despite the slight shake of fear in her eyes. 'So? Will you punish me again? I'm not proud of interfering with someone else's Duel, but I can't stand by and let you hurt anyone else either, not the way you've hurt me!'

Roboppi grimaces. 'Argh! Why'd you have to say something cool like that!' They stare at her in frustration. 'Why couldn't you be this cool earlier, when it mattered, when you could have saved-'

'Aqua?' Blue Maiden interrupts, a harsh bite in her voice. 'I don't know – why couldn't you have been cool, back when you lost to Soulburner?' She shakes her head sadly. 'It doesn't matter how angry you get; you can't change the past. And I think standing back and letting someone get hurt when I have the power to do something, however small, would have disappointed Aqua greatly.'

Roboppi glares some more. Curls their fist as Blue Maiden tenses. And then Roboppi fists uncurl. And instead of watching Blue Maiden scream and shiver, caught in a net of electricity, Ai is treated to the sight of her surprised face as she's forcefully logged out.

Ai continues to stare out from over Playmaker's shoulder, at the bewilderment that crosses Roboppi's face at their own actions.

'Why?' They mutter, utterly befuddled, eyes still fixed on the spot Blue Maiden was standing at seconds before. 'She deserves it, so why did I log her ou-'

'The Duel's over,' Ai cuts in sharply before Roboppi starts to think too deeply about it. 'And so's your country. Go home.'

And then, taking a leaf from Roboppi's book, he forcefully logs both himself and Playmaker out. And tries not to think of the weird way Roboppi's face had twisted, as soon as the word 'home' came tumbling out of his mouth.

* * *

Picture this: A thud. The clatter of a tray as it's shoved through a door.

Roboppi crosses their arms and stares at Aoi, at the tangle of her hair and the way it veils her delicate neck. She's a mess, human sweat and stink clogging up her pores, even as she sits nestled amongst the rumpled bedcovers in a room that is never cleaned.

And Roboppi's hands tighten within their sleeves as lines of zeros and ones pulse within them, telling them to _clean, clean, clean,_ to adjust the sheets, to stick them in the wash, to do the same to the school uniform Aoi hides her filthy body inside...

'Hurry up and eat!' they snap at her.

Aoi looks at them. She fingers the chopsticks balanced delicately over the bowl of small, clumped rice, lips twisting at the way the grains appear almost grey under the flickering light-bulb in her room. Still, after a moment, she scoops up some rice, and lets these same grains perch on her tongue.

And Roboppi digests these movements, and the flicker of her eyes as she works her way through the bowl. More, more, they want more so they can ignore their core programming, can cut holes in it, and tweak the parts of it that clash against the Ignis one that grants free will and...

'You finished?' Roboppi asks with a smile, and Aoi gives them a dirty look before she rolls the bowl over to them. Roboppi snatches it up, inspecting the contours and the hollow within. But not one grain of rice remains. Good.

That's one less thing to clean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. You mean...it was...Roboppi....all this time? Wow. What a twist. How unexpected. Much surprise. Who would have guessed?
> 
> Also, I guess I will be writing Roboppi with gender neutral pronouns i.e. they/them. Since I don't know if we're purposefuly meant to ascribe a gender to Roboppi the way we've obviously meant to do with the Ignis, and I guess Bohman and Haru in the series. And I kinda like the idea that although Roboppi's default setting as a Roboppi model seems to a rather feminine sort of voice in keeping with the whole robotic maid role, as soon as they have free will, they don't give two fucks about it anymore.


	10. The Ingenuity of the Marvelous Lap Pillow

Back on the boat, they learn that nobody else encountered Roboppi or Blue Maiden, though Spectre's lips twist a little when her name crops up.

Ryoken however looks furious when he learns just _what_ , exactly, Roboppi has been doing to her. 'I cannot let this stand!' he hisses out, jaw tight as he stares out at the wall as though he wants to burn it down. 'I will not let history repeat itself!'

The other scientists look similarly shaken.

'We can't do anything without finding her physical body,' Yusaku says slowly. He's slumped on the chair, folded in on himself, arms crossed like a physical barrier. Usually he'd sit a little straighter, stare out a little more harshly at everybody, and Ai can't get a decent read on him because of it. 'It's different from all those other times people have had their consciousness stolen in the network because their bodies weren't stolen as well; they were left in their homes or in a hospital, under the supervision of their families or doctors. Which means that even if we free Zaizen in the net, she'll still be trapped wherever she is the real world.'

Ai rolls his eyes up to the ceiling. Honestly – what would they do without him!

'So we find her,' he says evenly, beckoning to Pandor with a finger. She drifts over, curious, and Ai pulls up a holographic screen, tapping it idly with the same finger he used to get her attention. 'While Playmaker was distracting that weird Roboppi person, I gave Blue Maiden a new card to put in her deck; one with a tracker in it.'

Okay, that definitely puts a little steel back into Yusaku's spine. For he straightens, fastening a sharp look at Ai, a fleeting look of surprise dawning before it rapidly fades. Good.

'Here we go,' Ai mutters, pulling up a visual of the card. 'Splash Mage – given its effect, I figure it would work nicely with the way she likes to recycle monsters from her graveyard – I was even nice enough to make sure it was water attribute as well.'

Pandor tilts her head to the side. 'A Cyberse card?'

Ai scowls. 'What's wrong with that? There's one in Yusaku's deck!'

'Nothing, if it does exactly what you say it does,' Ryoken says evenly. He glides round the desk to stand by Pandor, registering the small beep of light flaring in a corner of the screen. 'She's not even in Den City; somewhere north.' He gives Ai an appraising look. 'Well done,' he says after a moment, though he sounds more than a little grudging as he does so.

But Ai grins. Because praise is praise, and he'll take it whenever he can!

 _'Heh.'_ He spits it out smugly, enough to make Ryoken's frown deepen, and then glances out through the window, eye alighting on the twinkle of the sea. 'Are we using this boat to speed to her rescue?' he asks off-hand. 'Might be difficult given that she's nowhere near the ocean.'

'We should check out properties owned by Queen, the former head of SOL Technologies,' Yusaku says brusquely. 'That's who Blue Maiden hinted was working with Roboppi.'

Huh. So that's why Blue Maiden was going on about thrones before?

Yusaku clambers to his feet. 'Now that we know what we're doing; how long till we make land?'

Ryoken's eyes pass over him. Perhaps he can see the same things Ai sees; the way Yusaku holds himself, more stiffly than usually, and the way his eyes are harder, more furious as they glare out at nothing in particular.

'Let's not rush,' he says. 'First: we rest.'

* * *

Yusaku crashes into a set of long grey lounge seats, laid out in a spacious room that overlooks the deck. The windows are long glass stripes that stare out at the world, offering a decent view and it makes Ai wonder, not for the first time, if the Knights of Hanoi have liberated this vehicle from a ferry or tourist related company.

Yusaku shifts. And hides his head in the seat, his arms buried beneath like a spare pillow.

Ai frowns. 'Yusaku?'

And then Yusaku starts to shake. Now thoroughly alarmed, Ai races over to his side. 'Yusaku!'

And Yusaku spits out a trembling, almost scornful laugh. It shakes his shoulders, rattles every inch of his delicate human frame and Ai panics, unsure where to touch or offer comfort, before Yusaku rolls back to face him, the laugh cutting off into an abrupt sob, dry and entirely without tears.

Ai freezes.

Yusaku stares at him, a wrecked expression on his face. Then his hand fumbles out from beneath him, gripping Ai tightly by the wrist. His fingers bite, hard enough to register uncomfortably on the sensors there and Ai winces. For a minute he just lets Yusaku hold him, lets him stare at him and then tentatively he passes his free hand over Yusaku's fringe, lets it fold back, away from his forehead.

Yusaku closes his eyes at the touch and breathes out. Deeply. Then in again. In. Then out. Ai counts five seconds for each breath and it occurs to him that Yusaku is doing the same.

'You've been holding this back, huh?' he asks, and Yusaku's eyes open, fix on his face with a softness that Ai's not sure he deserves.

Ai offers a smile and hopes it's the right thing to do. Then he asks another question. 'Are you mad at me?' he asks softly.

Yusaku's lips twitch. 'Yes and no,' he replies after a moment. 'You interfered with a Duel, _my_ Duel, and the Duellist in me hates that. But I'm grateful too.' His stare is haunted. 'I haven't lost a Duel in a very long time.'

Ai remembers cries of pain and sobs from a child, from over a decade back and shivers.

'I know,' he says softly. 'Roboppi...what they gave me, was a copy of some memories. My very first memories. I know now, what you had to go through in order for me to exist.'

Yusaku stiffens. 'Anything else?' he asks.

Ai shakes his head. 'Nope! Just...just the Lost Incident.' He pauses, feels the need to ask about Flame and Aqua; he knows from these new - well, _old_ \- memories now that there were other experiments run alongside his and Yusaku's, other AI being born, and due to his recent experiences with Blood Sheppard and Blue Maiden, he knows the names of two of them. And yet...

Yusaku is here and frightened and crashing, hand curling round his wrist like a life-line. And they, Flame and Aqua, and those nameless others...they are not.

Ai grimaces at the thought. And finally, after a quick calculation, he dismantles the trackers Roboppi first placed inside him all those months ago. Because it's very clear that despite being an AI like him, Roboppi has very, very firm ideas of what sort of companionship he _should_ be seeking out. And Ai's not so sure he agrees with them. At all.

'Brace yourself, Yusaku,' he warns, and then he moves, free hand curling round Yusaku's head so he can shift it into his lap, as he slides onto the seat beneath. He grins down at his partner's bemused expression. 'Here! Delight in the softness of my lap-pillow!' Then he softens, hand moving back to stroke Yusaku's fringe. 'Though I can understand if you don't want to fall for me anymore. I was the source of a lot of pain for you, huh?'

Yusaku's bemused stare morphs back into a rather angry-looking frown. 'You didn't choose to exist; nobody does. You certainly didn't engineer the Lost Incident.' His hands loosens against Ai's trapped wrist, slides down so it's lying palm to palm. 'You never needed to be forgiven for that; so don't make the mistake of thinking you deserve to be resented for it either. It's the people on the boat here who have to deal with that.'

Ah. More answers. But Ai doesn't chase down any more of them. Instead he smiles. And after a moment, Yusaku smiles back. It's a tiny, delicate line of his face, easy enough to crush, to wipe away with the wrong word, the wrong actions. So for once, Ai does nothing. He just sits there, stroking his partner's hair.

And they both rest there, for as long as they dare.

* * *

Yusaku is wretched back to the world an hour later, by a thud. He blinks, Ai's hands stiff on his hair, colours sliding into view until they solidify into Ai's angry face, glaring out at Spectre, who stands in the doorway, a smug smile on his face.

'How nice,' he says, eyes gleaming in a way that is anything but. 'I remember a time you two would fall out over a simple Duelling tactic; but now it looks like the trust between you is so strong that one of you can act like furniture for the other without complaint!'

Yusaku frowns; sleep is still clouding his mind slightly, enough to dull the embarrassment he has of being caught utilising Ai as a pillow by Spectre, of all people. Still, he does push himself up, ignoring the blossoming pout on Ai's face as he does so.

And Spectre's eyes immediately narrow, his voice adopting that patronising, wheedling tone that drove Ai up the wall in their past duels against him. 'Or is it because the Dark Ignis has lost his memories? Is that why he agrees so easily to being your docile pet now?'

Ai's pout transforms into a glare. 'Huh? Who's whose pet?' He turns his face to the side with a sneer, curling a palm round his ear as though straining to hear a faint yell in the distance. 'Eh? What's that? I think your master Revolver is calling for you? Why don't you run back to him like the dog that you are, Spectre- _kun?'_

Spectre grins. 'Thanks for the compliment. A dog is exactly what I am; I would never turn against him.' His eyes bore into them both, the intensity making Ai cock his head in confusion. 'Though I doubt you can say the same, Dark Ignis. The past – the past you say you can't remember - proves that your loyalty has always been for yourself.'

'Good,' says Yusaku firmly, standing up and inspecting the outside world through the windows; he can see that they've docked, the greys and browns of brick houses from some seaside town flashing out above the glint of the sea. 'That's as it should be; everyone has the right to self-preservation. I never asked for Ai to chain himself to me.' He fixes Spectre with a look.

But all Spectre does is tut. 'Careful, Fujiki. I don't think your sense of justice, and the lengths your Ignis will go to defend himself are mutually compatible. Your desire to defend him will only lead to more human causalities in the long run; and we all know how much that would weigh on you.'

You don't know a thing, Yusaku thinks contemptuously. Not when it comes to my partner. None of the Knights of Hanoi do, no matter how many times they analyse Ai's past. He turns to said partner. 'Let's go.'

'Oh my,' Spectre says with a look of dawning delight. 'Are you ignoring me? Did my words hit a nerve?'

Yusaku refuses to respond. It's exactly what Spectre wants; he thrives on provoking others, which is why Yusaku wants to get Ai out of his verbal range as soon as possible. Something that is looking to be increasingly hard to do by the way Ai now stares at Spectre stiffly, hands clenched on his lap.

'Are you sure you're following your dear Revolver-sama's orders now?' his partner drawls. His glare softens, turning sly. 'I can't think why he would ask you to come and needle us. Do you think he'd approve of picking fights with us when poor Zaizen Aoi is suffering?' A fey light appears in his eyes and he pushes himself off the seat, launching himself across the room, as though to better help him home in the way Spectre's pleased smile becomes a grimace of distaste. 'Oh? Have _my_ words hit a _nerve_?'

Now it's Ai who is starting to resemble a bully, grin lighting up his face and making him look wild and unbalanced.

So Yusaku huffs out a breath. Reaches out. And smoothly draws Ai's hand into his own.

Ai instantly starts, his wild grin disappearing in a flash. He stares down the length of his arm, blinking as his sensors register the warmth of Yusaku's tangled fingers. And then his cheeks flare a suspicious red.

'Eh?' he says. 'EH? I-in front of someone?'

Yusaku watches, amused, though he takes care not to let it show. Mostly because Spectre's eyes are swallowing the sight of them down, briefly resting on their interlinked hands in a way that's both speculative and angry.

That's fine though; Yusaku doesn't owe him anything. And since Spectre has always been so proud at declaring his allegiance to Ryoken, well, why shouldn't Yusaku do the same? If Spectre wants to draw lines in the sand, then Yusaku will firmly strike out some of his own.

'Come along,' he says smoothly, trying to fight down his smile as Ai stares at him, dazed. Then he drags him through the door, only half-tuning out Ai's mutters of: 'what a bold development! But you're supposed to be the shy one, Yusaku-chan!' The last thing he sees of Spectre is his glare, boring out into the ocean, as though he's finally run out of things to say.

* * *

Yusaku makes sure to drop Ai's hand before they stumble out in front of the others on the boat, ignoring Ai's injured pout as he does so. There's no need to provoke anyone else without good reason and Yusaku is wary. He trusts Ryoken not to pull anything, _for the moment_ , but the others...no, he definitely doesn't trust their view on Ai, whatever it may now be.

These thoughts occupy him, causing unease to sink into his stomach as he walks down corridors filled with plush red carpet, the walls bare of pictures and stuck in a painfully warm cream colour.

This, quite naturally, seems to offend Ai.

'Would it have killed them to inject the place with some personality?' he asks, disgust leaking into his tone. He gestures violently toward a long stretch of walls unadorned by anything except the faint, glistening web of a spider. 'Seriously! Hang up a few pictures! Make this place seem less like a school or a prison!'

'It suits our needs.' Pandor's voice suddenly drifts towards them, then, in a way that seems a tad dramatic, as she steps out of the shadows near the stairs. 'I trust you are recuperated?' she asks Yusaku, her voice warmed by the smile she wears, every line of it perfectly balanced in an elegant curve.

Yusaku nods, a little embarrassed. 'Yes,' he states, annoyance leaking into his tone with a fair amount of bite. It only grows as Ai stalks past him to glower at Pandor.

'Oh, and I suppose this minimalistic decor suits your taste as well?'

Pandor's smile widens. 'I get my fill of what you might call 'taste' by monitoring human activity on the net each day.'

Ai gazes at her. 'And you never get the urge to take part? To find your own 'taste?''

Pandor frowns. 'Why would I?'

Ai stares at her a moment more. 'Huh. Boring, aren't you? Maybe we're not as alike as I thought.' He draws back, disappointment faintly washing over his expression for a moment before it flitters out, chased away by a carefully blank look that shifts into place, like a key inside a lock.

...Yusaku isn't fond of that expression at all. 'We're ready now,' he tells Pandor. 'Tell us where Ryoken and the others are. We've made land so they have must have started planning. Or finished.'

'They're in the main lab,' she says smoothly. 'I'll just fetch Spectre.' She walks past them, ignoring Ai's theatrical groan of despair.

'Do you have to bring that guy?' he whines. 'Come on! Leave him to brood!'

Yusaku ignores him and strides forward without looking back. He's had his moment of weakness. Now he has to re-forge himself again; become someone who can help both Ai and Aoi. It's the least he can do, with or without the mantle of 'Playmaker' weighing him down.

* * *

Ai drapes his arms over the back of a chair, having decided to sit on it the wrong way round and meets the eyes of whoever dares to gaze at him with a smug smile. His leg jostles against Yusaku's with a nervous jitter, energy thrumming beneath it like an overworked engine and Yusaku wants to tell him to calm down, but is preoccupied himself with trying to project an image of stability. Arms crossed, back straight, staring straight out with a gaze a stranger could flinch from; he wants to make up for before.

Though quite frankly, what he really wants is...

One: for Aoi to be safe at home, with her brother where she belongs.

Two: for Ai to be away from these people who all, at some point, have expressed their desires to see him deleted.

Three: for _himself_ to be off this boat and away from these scientists who refused to say no to Doctor Kogami, who forced Ryoken, a _child_ , to make the decision they _all_ should have made eleven years ago: _to call the police._

Still. He has to admit that there's strength in numbers, which is the only real reason he's here. And he can't help but feel relieved, when Baira and Genome volunteer to stay on the boat with Pandor, to monitor the network.

Faust however decides to come with them.

'You may find that I am more useful in the real world than you think,' he intones gravely and Yusaku stares at him, remembering that yes, this is a man who once upon a time knocked out Shima Naoki with ease and then transported and restrained him in a far, out of the way warehouse – things that require a fair amount of muscle.

So he says nothing in protest. Though a part of him, a small, hard, petty part of him does want to speak out against Spectre's accompaniment. He's not an idiot; he bristles whenever Aoi is brought up and he seems to have far more of personal problem with him and Ai than he did previously, in their fight against Lightning. Yusaku's not sure why, and quite frankly, he doesn't care.

'Can I trust you not to mock a traumatised person?' he asks when Spectre arrives. 'It's no secret that you view Zaizen Aoi with contempt; your body language gives it all away.'

Spectre's lips tighten. 'You can trust that I'll do the job that Revolver has asked of me.'

Ryoken looks at him for a moment thoughtfully. 'And I trust we can all temporarily put aside our differences to ensure our goal,' he states evenly and with such deep conviction that the room seems to resound with it; Baira's eyes flicker over to them, darting worriedly between Ai and Spectre for a moment before she lowers her gaze back to her computer. While Faust stares stiffly at the floor, gaze troubled.

' _All_ of us,' Ryoken adds very, very firmly, gaze boring into Ai, who immediately stiffens.

'Hey! Why are you looking at me like that! I've been good, haven't I? I'm not the one going out and kidnapping and torturing people!'

'You stand out,' Ryoken says. 'Your outfit draws unnecessary attention from passing strangers, even if only for a moment. It's eye-catching because your clothes are not something you see someone wear everyday casually. And we want to avoid that.'

Ai looks as though someone just told him they've had to delete part of his personality. He gingerly draws his hands down over his waistcoat and then strokes the end of his coattails mournfully. 'Well, I suppose going incognito is a bit exciting...like a spy!' he grins, cheered at the thought. Then quickly frowns and shoots a suspicious look at Ryoken. 'You're not going to ask me to change my face, right? Since given how handsome it is, it's gonna have people turning their heads like that.' He clicks his fingers together abruptly with a bright leer.

Ryoken smirks. 'No. Being attractive tends to soften human perception. It's easier to talk your way into a place.' His smirk widens, becomes a grin that typically Yusaku has only seen him wear inside the Vrains. 'In fact...you could say some of our strategy depends on it.' And now there's definately something smug about his smile. 'Rest assured, Dark Ignis, I won't have you change your outfit yet. In fact, I'll have you earn some of that attention you so crave...'

Yusaku's heart sinks at the look of intrigue that immediately spreads over Ai's face as a result of these words.

...He has a very bad feeling about this.

* * *

Picture this: a woman fallen from power. Discontent with her life.

She sleeps in bed that feels both too hard and too soft, and wakes in a sweat. Her dreams are haunted by the rude buzz that resounds when your life-points hit zero in a Duel. In them she crashes against a wall, sometimes scarlet, sometimes dark. She hears a voice as harsh as a jackal's, as deadly as a storm, grating but low, attached to a face too pretty to be human. The green diamond on the wretched neck glows like a torch, throws out a spotlight on her face. She can't run. Can't move. Only sleep after it finds her.

She takes to bed-sheets with heavy tones, swamps her duvet and pillow cases with tones of wine-red and dark green. Nothing though that ever falls within the shades of black or purple.

Sometimes she thinks she is still in that hospital bed, waiting to wake up. Sometimes, too much of her is lost, and she buzzes round the network like a fly.

Sometimes Roboppi finds her. And they always wear a look caught between pity and fear when they do.

Queen hates that. She hates them.

'I was trying to sleep!' she hisses at them.

Roboppi hums and crosses their arms behind their head. 'It doesn't look that way to me,' they say.

'You're just an AI,' Queen spits. 'What do you know?' She tosses her head back. 'When are you going to keep up your end of the deal?'

'Oh Queen,' Roboppi sings, the cold hard, corners of their mouth curling, up, up, up and away. 'I already have.' They grin, lean and hard. ' **Night, night.** '

And then Queen loses herself once more.


	11. Rapunzel, Rapunzel, it's time to come Home...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know the appropriate tag to use but...there's some imagery in this chapter in regard to how some humans might choose to modify the SOLtiS for their own personal sexual gratifiction that may make some people feel queesy. I'm really not a good judge of this sort of thing, so maybe you'll read it and think, 'what are you talking about, that was pretty tame,' but I dunno...

'Huh.' With a scoff, Kitamura, the disgraced ex-employee of Sol Technologies and once upon a time, former boss of Akira Zaizen, stalks forward.

Yusaku has never met the man personally. But as he sees Ryoken level a cool look at him, one that speaks of quiet contempt, he realises that perhaps that may not be true for any of the other people in the room.

 _'If you want Queen vulnerable, take away others she may have turned to,'_ Ryoken had said quietly, not half an hour before. _'A woman like that, who attained CEO through networking, would have kept notes on anyone who may have felt abandoned and mistreated by the company that let her go.'_ His lips had thinned. _'And Kitamura certainly fits the bill.'_

And this man, thin as a rake, his scarlet tie sticking out within this dingy little warehouse like an eyesore, certainly irritates Yusaku within the first few minutes of them meeting. Perhaps it's the way his eyes take in every inch of Ai's programmed features, lingering on his lips and the finely rendered lines of his eyelashes. Or maybe it's the way his sweaty hand strokes his chin as though in deep thought, when really, the only thing that gleams in his eyes above is sheer greed.

'Well,' he says, 'your machine's certainly a pretty one, that's for sure. He'd pull in all the girls and lonely housewives. Maybe a few men too.' Amused by this line, Kitamura sniggers.

And Yusaku cannot believe he has sat in a car for thirty-five minutes for _this._ He watches, pity stirring within him, as a grimace crosses Ai's face. And now another, much more negative emotion flares up inside him as he watches Kitamura grab hold of Ai's chin and force his head from side to side, harshly, with no thought for the joints and motors he's mishandling, as though inspecting him.

But then again, in this place, Ai is nothing more than a commodity.

Dozens of SOLtiS line the walls of this tacky warehouse, vacant looks in their eyes. Some wear fluorescently bright lingerie, some wear nothing at all. Others have malformed limbs, a few are even missing ones, hunks of torn metal waving feebly, almost detached at the places where their shoulders and hips should be. And while Yusaku hasn't intentionally _looked_ at the naked ones, he can see, in the creases between their legs that certain modifications have been made. Slits cut into the body in parody of human _genitalia_ _,_ flaps of makeshift skin sewn into place, and what looks to be a giant flesh-coloured dildos glued on some of the male forms...

If SOL Technologies won't produce a sex-bot, well then. There are seedier establishments who will be more than willing to take up the challenge in their place, using the SOLtiS they have produced so kindly as a template.

All of it makes Yusaku hate this place. Hate this plan. And he hates what Ai must feel, glancing out into this torture chamber and seeing what some of humanity wants to make of the body he is in. Yusaku glances at Ai. And feels a little sick at the smile his partner wears, at the way his eyelashes droop, almost provocatively.

'I'm glad to meet your approval,' he demurs, voice as smooth as honey; and Yusaku feels even sicker. Only he can read the anger buried there, can hear the way the vowels are bitten out like chunks of stale bread. To anyone else Ai might sound sensual, like a slow-moving river. Not to him.

As though to complete the effect, Ai titters out a laugh. 'Though I'm afraid I'm not quite on the market yet,' he adds with a wink.

'As you can see,' Ryoken cuts in, his face completely unreadable. 'We're willing to throw in a downloadable personality. I'm sure plenty of your clients would enjoy having a SOLtiS that can actively engage in the conversation.'

Kitamura's eyes narrow. He bends Ai's head back as though to test it, watching the way the tendons are projected, the way they strain beneath fake skin, despite not really being there. More importantly he watches Ai's face, alert for any sight of rebellion.

'Ahhh,' Ai sighs, clear strain in his voice. 'Please stop...you're hurting me...' he practically whimpers it out and it's not all an act, so Yusaku steps closer, nearer, fighting the urge to shove this guy away. And for one furious moment, he wants to shove away Ryoken too.

Ryoken gives him a quelling look, a damn near glare, and Faust's hand reaches out, to grab him by the shoulder and that makes Yusaku see ** _red_**. It makes his own hands shoot out in pure reflex, slapping Faust's away – _he doesn't want this man touching him_. Not when he sat down behind one of Kogami's keyboard, day after day and watched him and five other children suffer again and again.

Kitamura glances up at the sharp sound of skin meeting skin and Ai takes that moment to quickly tug himself away, and step back behind Revolver. 'Easy there!' he laughs, hands running over Ryoken's shoulders and clamping down carefully, as though to hold him out in front of him like a shield. Yusaku watches Ryoken tense at the gesture and feels a stray flicker of satisfaction well up inside him at the sight.

'We all just want to make sure a fair price is struck up for me, that's all,' Ai continues blithely. He removes a hand from one tense shoulder, practically cooing at the man behind Ryoken, eyelashes fluttering. 'My _master_ here, has some matters he wants to discuss with you. And then maaaybe I'll be all yours...'

Ai lets the word trails off flirtatiously and attempts to hook his chin over Ryoken's shoulder at the exact moment Ryoken steps forward out of his reach. Ai stumbles, but then quickly rears up and cups his chin with his hand in a pose of deep thought as though he had always meant to do so in the first place.

Kitamura can't help but watch this performance, a look of startled amusement on his face. 'That's...quite the personality you've put on that thing. It acts damn near human.'

Ai pouts. ' _Near?_ ' he questions, stuffing as much grouchy offence as he possibly can within one word.

Kitamura's eyes narrow, unease entering his expression; and no wonder. No other SOLtiS here is capable of expressing what Ai does so freely. So Ryoken takes this moment to firmly step directly into the man's line of sight, as though to block out Ai's body from his eyes. Or at least distract him from it.

'Yes. We worked very hard on it, to make it as realistic as possible. Which is why we want to get a fair price for our hard work.' His lips quirk. 'Which means it's not money that interests us.'

Kitamura frowns. 'Oh? Well, that certainly would make you an unusual seller...'

'We want information,' Ryoken continues brusquely. 'About a certain client of yours; a woman who would have almost certainly paid for your services, upfront, in cash.'

Grimly, Faust steps forward, sliding out a photograph from inside his jacket pocket. He holds it up to the light, bright enough to unveil the vibrant green colour of Queen's hair as she glares down at Kitamura furiously, her shape almost, but not quite lost behind the blur of the people around them.

'Check out the timestamp!' Ai pipes up cheerfully, sliding down beneath Faust's outstretched arm to point at the small white numbers logged into the corner of the frame. 'We nabbed this baby from the footage taken from one of the storefront cameras positioned on an avenue less than a block away.' He smiles. 'Nice gig you've got here; selling the rejected SOLtiS, or at least the ones scrubbed clean of the serial numbers and trackers Sol Technologies likes to stick inside them, the perverts!' He takes another glance at the room around him and then purses his lips upon landing on a SOLtiS whose breasts have been practically unveiled from behind a corset of black netting. 'Well. Okay. _Maybe_ you've left them in the dust in _that_ department.'

'Either way,' Yusaku says grimly. 'It's clear this woman was in the area three months ago. Right around the time she would have been looking to purchase a SOLtiS to help her kidnap a teenage girl.'

The man's face goes deathly pale.

'I am sure,' Ryoken says quietly, 'that you had no way of knowing that she would use the SOLtiS she purchased from you in such a way. Still. I imagine the police would be interested in _any_ information we could give them regarding this.'

The man swallows.

'How many SOLtiS did she purchase from you in total?' Faust rumbles. 'Be honest now.'

'W-wait!' Kitamura practically screams, sweat beading on his brow. He thrusts his arms out as though the gesture can throw their words away, make them disappear. 'You've got it all wrong!'

'What models?'

'I-HEY!' The man's shouts cuts out across the warehouse like a gun-shot. 'Get away from the rest of the merchandise!' he gestures furiously at Ai, who is busy running a careful hand over the finely chiselled features of a young male SOLtiS, eyes glowing faintly.

'Relax, it's not like I'm feeling them up,' Ai murmurs. 'Though I'm sure you have clients who would pay to see that sort of thing.' He steps back, looking pleased when the SOLtiS' eyes follow him. He grins. 'Still. If you're not going to cooperate with us, then what's the point of us playing nice?' He slings a friendly arm round the male SOLtiS, smiling as it relaxes under his touch. 'It's not like we were going to clean you out entirely.' His eyes rest back on Kitamura, a hard glower now present in them. 'But if you're not willing to tell us what sort of security Queen likes to run in her latest hidey-hole, we'll leave all that cleaning out to the police.'

As pale as the man already is, at Ai's words his skin reaches a thoroughly bleached hue.

'What! No!'

Faust drops the photo, stepping forward. Then, with no warning, his hand falls down in a neat chop, heavy and swift towards Kitamura's shoulder.

And that should have been that. It should have been over. But **no**. For just as his hand grazes the upturned lapel of Kitamura's collar, there is a sudden rush of light and electricity rapidly races its way over the stockier man's form, each crackling spark highlighting the savage grin on Kitamura's face below.

'Ah,' Ai mutters by Yusaku's side. 'Wasn't expecting that.'

Sweat clouding his brow, Kitamura steps to the side as Faust slumps to the floor, the loud smack causing a wet gasp to rattle out from between the scientist's teeth.

And Yusaku stares in surprise at the strange golden glow emitting from the fabric of the suit jacket Kitamura wears as the skinny man smirks. 'Like it?' he asks with a preen. 'It's a prototype your Roboppi friend designed for me.' He taps a finger against the red knot in his tie. 'The motion camera's here, so it can register an oncoming threat.'

Ai grimaces, shooting the fallen Faust a disgruntle look as he seizes Yusaku's wrist and attempts to draw him behind him. Shocked, Yusaku quickly obeys the sharp jerk on his arm with stunned thoughtlessness, eyes widening as six armoured and blank-faced SOLtiS suddenly run in. And every single one of have their metal hands wrapped around the unwelcome sight of a gun.

'This,' Ai says lowly, 'Yusaku- _chan_ , is why I wanted you to wait in the car.'

Kitamura glares at them, as he stamps down hard on Faust's shoulder for good measure. 'She warned me you'd come,' he hisses. He looks wild now, eyes blazing. 'Do you take me for an idiot?'

Ai looks like he's clearly biting back a few choice words that would answer a resounding 'yes' to that question.

Kitamura laughs. 'I think I'll be taking that attractive SOLtiS and the program you've designed for it, all the same though! So sorry we couldn't come to a fair price...'

'He's not just a clever program inhabiting the SOLtiS.' Ryoken's voice cuts through the tense atmosphere and Yusaku glances at him; the other boy's fists are clenched, his face is arranged into practically a snarl, but his voice stays level – or at least as level as it can get, with all the anger flowing through it. 'It seems Queen has kept you out of the loop.'

Kitamura laughs. 'Oh please, you'd say anything to save yourself!'

It's as though he's jinxed himself with those very words; for without warning two small glints twinkle through the darkness. And the next second, they land on the back of Kitamura's neck like tiny silver buttons. Kitamura blinks, hands scrambling round the back of his neck to find the new items perched on his skin; but before his fingers make contact, there's a sharp crack of noise. And now it's Kitamura's turn to experiance an electric shock as it thrusts itself through his body like an arrow and he screams and screams, falling to writhe to the ground.

Smoothly, and with far too much grace, Spectre steps out of the darkness, wearing a look of clear, sharp anger, as he gazes down at the screaming Kitamura with disgust, his hand still locked round the long-range electroshock weapon.

'How dare you besmirch Revolver!' he mutters. 'That cowardly behaviour you describe is what I remember from _you_ , back when you begged me not to turn you into data for the Tower of Hanoi!' His look turns sly. 'How sad! Have you truly forgotten that pleasant event? Here! Perhaps another electrical shock will jog your memory!'

A steady hand lands on Spectre's before he can do much more than raise his weapon again. 'That's enough,' Ryoken says. They stare at each other a moment, before Spectre's grip turns lax, slipping away and out of Ryoken's hold.

Ai takes this oportunity to let go of Yusaku's wrist. And the next second he's kneeling beside Kitamura, cape spread out against the floor as he watches the electricity dance away into nothingness. Ignoring the man's whimpers, he steadily presses his fingers against the sweaty forehead below, his eyes glowing faintly.

'What are you doing?' Ryoken asks sharply.

'Checking for the master password that will allow those SOLtiS to recognise someone else as their master,' Ai murmurs. With his free hand, he snaps his fingers and the armoured SOLtiS, instantly flop to the ground, like puppets with their strings cut, guns spilling out of their hands to clatter against the floor.

Yusaku swallows and tries not to remember another sight, familiar to this one months back, in another warehouse, with yet more SOLtiS scattered across the floor.

Ai lifts his fingers away, rising back to his feet with a grin. 'I do so love wireless transmissions.' Then he pouts at the wary look Ryoken is giving him. 'Oh, come on! I guess I _could_ have hacked them and left Kitamura's mind alone, but that would have taken more time. And I'd rather get those guns pointed at something other than our faces much sooner, thank you!' He shudders. 'Next time _you_ can be the one to flirt with the greasy loser.' He shrugs. 'At any rate I have his passwords now; so we can look at his records and see exactly how many SOLtiS the Queen has guarding her throne.'

He stands up, spins, then abruptly pauses upon realising that Ryoken hasn't stop glaring at him. 'Why, what was gonna happen if you couldn't scare him into talking? Shock him some more? Just be glad I downloaded the building layout and gave it to Spectre before we busted in here!'

Ryoken closes his eyes. He stands up. He passes an assessing gaze round the warehouse, round the SOLtiS and their tattered, or otherwise inconvenient clothing. His gaze even takes in the ones without any sort of fabric covering them at all.

'Don't worry,' he says finally. 'I won't ask you to be bait again.'

* * *

More roads to travel down. But not before Ryoken puts a call through to the police, to direct them to the warehouse where they've left Kitamura snoozing within the steady arms of one of the SOLtiS. Ai watches him do it, gaze steely, as Ryoken ignores him entirely, choosing to run careful hands over Faust's back as both he and Spectre helped the man to his feet.

Not Yusaku. He keeps his eyes on Ai, watching the strange, assessing expression cross his face, as he glances round the warehouse one last time.

'What do the police usually do with SOLtiS like these?' Ai asks after a moment. 'Send them back to Sol Technologies?' His gaze lands on one of the ones missing their limbs. 'Or do they get thrown on the junk heap?'

It is _this_ that makes Ryoken meet his eyes. 'Oh?' he asks, gaze narrowing, with steel in his own eyes as he watches Ai as though he were an animal, ready to bolt out of the room. 'Do you care for their fate, Dark Ignis? Does that mean you see them as an equal to yourself? Or to humans?'

Ai makes a face at that, his brow twisting like a coiled snake. 'No. Most of these ones are empty hardware, waiting to filled with software. And some of them...' he passes an uneasy eye over the SOLtiS he had passed his arm round earlier, the one who had relaxed at his touch. 'Well. They're more like animals, waiting for praise. Nothing really human about them.' He purses his mouth, like he wants to say more. Then, with a shake of his head, and a casual wave of his hand, he spins on his heel and stalks his way outside.

Yusaku hurries after him. 'Ai-'

'Zaizen Aoi needs to be found,' Ai cuts in harshly, not so much as looking his way. 'She lives and exists in a way those SOLtiS don't. They only have the potential to be people. And I can't even tell if they have that much of it; there's not enough time to check and see if they've been exposed to my old data, the one that's given some of the others free will.' And with that, he practically tumbles into the car Faust had driven them down in, folding his arms and crossing one leg over the other as he stares out the window in a huff.

There's a click as another car door opens, and Ryoken slides into the front seat in front of him. 'I won't apologise,' he says firmly. 'Not for what happens to them.' His eyes slide over to the driver's mirror, so he can meet Ai's glare reflected inside it. 'But I will apologise for the way Kitamura handled you.' He grimaces. 'I am sorry that he caused you discomfort. Even if it was necessary.'

Spectre, who is halfway into the car at this point, stops to stare at Ryoken in disbelief.

Ai's glares worsens for a single second more and then it fades. 'I don't want your apology,' he spits. 'Not for that!'

He turns away again, and Yusaku, who has made sure to slip into the car before Spectre started to insert himself, reaches over and runs a thumb over Ai's wrist, fingers jostling against the barrier of Ai's crossed arms.

Ai does not uncross them. But his head does slump away the window, and he does attempt to offer Yusaku a tired smile. So that's something.

* * *

After that, it's just a matter of following the signal emitted from the tracker Ai placed within the card he gave Aoi. One which leads them to a disused hotel. Cheap and run-down, with its name hanging off a half-torn down sign, Yusaku can't help but stare up at it, this small building with wild flowers growing through the cracks in its stone steps and compare it to the cold, white clinic where the Lost Incident took place inside. This prison – for that is what it is, a prison – feels wilder in comparison.

They could call the police. And perhaps, if it weren't for Roboppi's existence, and for the SOLtiS that presumably litter the insides of this place, they would. For what band of policemen would be prepared to cope with the reality of an AI with free will, who can escape to the nearest network, if things go well – and if they don't perhaps render them comatose?

Sol Technologies and their anti-SOLtiS weapons could do better perhaps. But...

Yusaku glances at Ai. Who is now peering at the doors with a look of intense focus.

 **No**. He doesn't want them involved. Not when they might hold Ai responsible.

'Alright then,' he says. He looks at Ai, who meets his eyes with an unwelcome smirk 'Be careful,' he tells him and feels the very opposite of reassured when Ai's smirk only grows wider in response.

'Heh. What a nice thing to say.' There's a quick whirlwind of black, a combination of Ai's hair and cape flaring and spilling out from his motions as he dives forward to squeeze Yusaku against his chest. It feels more like an attack than an actual hug, and yet for all that, Yusaku doesn't hate it.

'How do you do that?' Ai's voice tickles his ear in a whisper, one low enough for the other humans in the car not to hear, and oh, _of course._ Of course this hug isn't one of simple affection, of course it's a cover, a shield for Ai to pass along a warning or message- 'I'm bursting with happiness! And all from a few words!' Then his words turn softer, sadder. 'I'm sorry I don't know you better. That I don't remember you the way you deserve to be.'

Those words make a lump rise in Yusaku's throat. They make him form a ring with his arms around Ai's back, make him squeeze back, eyes shut, nose buried in Ai's cloak, a tendril of his partner's hair brushing against his lip. Because _oh._

'You know me well enough,' he says right back into the shell of Ai's ear. 'Don't push yourself.'

Ai chuckles. Then Yusaku feels a soft brush of lips against his ear. And then Ai lets him go, pulling back from the press of his arms, so that Yusaku has to let him go in return, has to let him clamber out of the car and stride up that weed-stricken path and-

 _Wave_. At a nearby _security camera_. And suddenly it is exasperation that fills Yusaku, rather than the strange, strong, watery pull of love from seconds before.

'This isn't a good idea,' Faust says quietly. His hands grip his knees, and he peers back at Yusaku from the corner of his eye. Yusaku ignores him; his eyes are on Ai, watching as he disappears inside, his cape vanishing round behind the reception desk with a quick tug of motion.

'It doesn't matter,' Ryoken says. 'The reality is, that Ai can deliver the shut-down command to the SOLtiS in a way no human can. We have a much better chance of sending him in to disable them all manually. None of us can stand up to an army of SOLtiS without suffering serious injury or worse.'

He has barely finished speaking when there's smash of sound and glass scatters over the tangled lawn like rainfall. And out through the pane of a broken window falls Ai, limbs tangled with another SOLtiS. They land with a thud, a creak of joints that turns mad and frenzied as they scramble against each other across the diamond-like gleam of cracked glass and the now quickly-flattened blades of grass.

'Neither can the Dark Ignis, apparently,' states Spectre, looking strangely amused. 'Not even against a single one.'

Yusaku has already tuned him out: it is instinct and maybe something else that has him wrenching the car door open and stumbling out, half in a run towards the fight. It's stupid and reckless, and he's basically doing exactly what he was so angry at Ai for earlier, when his partner had attempted to shield him from the final blow of the Duel with Roboppi. But he does not stop. He _can't._ Not even for the sound of Ryoken's voice yelling behind him.

Ai gives a mighty growl, thumps against the other SOLtiS' chest and then Yusaku is there, jamming his foot into the small of the enemy SOLtiS' back, hands tight around the bend of the neck, fingers clamped over the dewdrop of green that announces the LED diamond. He pulls with all his might, causing the SOLtiS to rear up, distracted by the new sensory data flooding its systems.

But it is only for a single second, a second Yusaku is losing against, before the SOLtiS starts to push their head down again. Yusaku strains and strains, despite the rebelling shake of his fingers, and the ache in his arms, despite the leverage of his foot...but it is not enough.

But it is perhaps enough for Ai. For with a snarl, Ai slams his fingers against the SOLtiS' brow, delivering the shut-down command physically, and the next second it slumps over, sending Yusaku to rattle down with it, arms still locked round its throat. He pants, dazed, and Ai glares up at him, trapped beneath both his weight and the now empty shell of the SOLtiS.

'Stupid! So stupid! Why'd you do that!'

Yusaku glares back but still rolls off him, watching as Ai thrusts the limp SOLtiS away with ease. 'For the same reason you interfered with my last Duel,' he says cuttingly, watching as Ai winces at the memory. 'Not many people can sit back and watch someone they care for getting beaten up.'

Ai puffs out his cheeks. 'It took me by surprise! I'd like to see how well you'd do if someone suddenly grabbed you round the waist from out of nowhere!'

'You waved at the camera!' Yusaku hisses. 'Of course they knew you were here!'

Ai rolls his eyes. 'I couldn't cut the connection to the camera from outside wirelessly. And breaking in would have alerted them even quicker!'

And then his eyes widen, staring straight up into the hole he and the SOLtiS created when they fell out of the hotel. With a feeling of dread, Yusaku follows his gaze and sees the tell-tell twinkle of orange and green lights that mark out the LED displays on the bodies of other SOLtiS, their shapes now clustered round the window. They're already moving out of the room and Yusaku and Ai scramble upright; but there's no time to run, not when the automatic doors nearby are already whooshing open.

And then out they come, the steady thump of their feet falling in unison against the path, the grass, as they trample their way outside. Weeds crumple beneath their weight and Yusaku stares at them, at the steady way they move as they approach.

Ryoken has clambered halfway out the car, gaze stricken, frozen; he's not in the Vrains, there's a limit to what he can do in the real world to help them. Faust stares out grimly from behind the car window, hands clenched on the steering wheel, and Yusaku can't see what Spectre's doing; his face is already lost behind both the blur of the glass and the driver's seat.

'I knew it,' Ai says softly. And then bizarrely, he launches into a loud round of applause, clapping his hands together viciously. 'Well done, oh, very well done! I bet it was hard, being a bunch of brainless idiots and tracking us outside!'

The SOLtiS take a step forward in unison, like soldiers in a march. Then another.

Ai tuts. 'What? You won't even offer us the chance of a last request?' He sniffs. 'How lame.'

'You're the one who's lame, Aniki!'

Like water, the SOLtiS scatter, parting for a slightly shorter one of their kind, the familar teal hair swaying to a stop as they turn on their heel. And Yusaku is discomfited to see how they hold themselves now, legs parted but firm, arms crossed and gaze steady; it reminds him of Aoi when she's in her Blue Maiden persona.

Roboppi narrows their eyes. 'This isn't a movie, Aniki! No one's swooping into the rescue!' They jam a thumb against their chest. 'Except me! I'll save you!'

Ai narrows his eyes. 'And the humans I'm with?'

Roboppi grits their teeth. 'No! They don't deserve it!'

Ai closes his eyes. 'Thought so.' He opens his eyes, and the gold within them blazes like an actual torch. 'Which is why I arranged my _own_ rescue.'

There's a screech of breaks, tires squeal, and then three vans pull up, boxing off Faust's car.

Ai smiles thinly. 'Timed that perfectly, didn't I? But then, I have been monitoring the traffic cams around the area for the last fifteen minutes.'

Sol Tech employees spill out into the streets, their familiar grey uniforms causing Yusaku's stomach to curdle. It curdles even more when he sees the familiar Anti-SOLtiS weapons in their hand.

Roboppi shrieks and stamps their foot. 'NO! WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS, WHY WOULD YOU INVITE THE MURDERERS WHO KILLED EARTH AND MADE YOU SAD!'

Ai's face twists. It stays that way, as the Sol Tech employees shout, race onto the lawn, vault the gate, jam their weapons into any SOLtiS they can find. Except Ai. They circle him warily, him and Yusaku both, but make no move to take him down. And Ai raises his fingers, curls the bottom three into a makeshift fist so that one remains sticking out, like the nozzle of a gun, straight at Roboppi.

' _Gotcha._ ' Then he smiles, his mouth drawing up into a sly and gleeful crescent. 'Oh, and there won't be any running away into the network either; I delivered a virus to shut it off at the laptop one of you left at the reception.'

Roboppi stares at him, bewildered. And then without warning, they launch themselves at Ai, throwing one Sol Tech employee aside as though they're paper. Ai starts at the horrible crack of noise their body makes as it crumbles against the side of the building, but there's no time to do much more than that, for with their face lost in a mask of rage, blistering ugly, the way it was back when they lost themselves to the Ignis programming months ago, Roboppi seizes Ai's head.

'Here, Aniki,' they hiss. 'A present for you!'

Ai lets out a cry as Roboppi's fingers claw into his hair, and a jolt of something passes between them, some burst of data between those invading hands and his head. Yusaku can tell because Ai falls still for moment, rigid with the shock of it.

 _'Happy birthday!'_ Roboppi sings out, the rage now wiped away with beaming smile. Then they pause. 'Wait, when is your birthday, anyway? Do AI like us even get them?'

Ai never gets the chance to reply, for an anti SOLtiS taser promptly thrusts itself into Roboppi's side. It's wielded by a purple-haired man, his face hidden by both sunglasses and the tangled knot of a thick green scarf, and with a grunt of effort, his fingers land on the button, driving the shut-down program into Roboppi, who flinches, then slumps over.

'That,' says the man tightly, the sound of his angry voice a direct match for Blood Shephard's own, 'was for what you did to me and my sister.'

He shifts, lifts the weapon away and then turns his head, so the black glare of his sunglasses is directed at them both. Yusaku has no idea what his expression truly is, hidden away behind both sunglasses and scarf, but given the way his fingers tighten on the taser, squeezing tightly enough for it to creak, perhaps he doesn't need to.

The man steps forward. 'Your turn,' he says with a growl, the rage in his voice a sheer blister of heat, and Yusaku doesn't even have time to raise a protest, to step in front of Ai, to divide him from this man and his hate-

**'STOP!'**

The volume of it, the shout, stops _everyone._ And then Zaizen Akira steps out of the van. His eyes are bloodshot but he strides out, determined, towards them, coming to a stop directly in front of Ai. A few wisps of hair escape from his coiled-back fringe, fluttering over his forehead, one that's plastered with sweat. He looks like he hasn't slept for days.

Yusaku's mouth is dry. He wants to say something, anything to stop whatever is happening here.

But then Akira speaks. 'Is she in there?' he asks Ai softly.

'She should be,' Ai replies, his face a careful mask of blankness. 'The tracker I gave her hasn't moved. And they wouldn't separate her from her deck; they need her to keep it.'

Akira's fists clench at the implication. Then he nods.

And Yusaku stares at Ai, remembering the shift of colour of in Ai's eyes earlier in the car, as it flittered, as it _calculated_. Presumably, for this.

'Ai-' he chokes out. 'Ai, you didn't! You gave them-'

'I gave them access to my tracker, yes,' Ai says clearly, not a trace of apology in his tone. 'When it become clear that our plan was doomed to failure, oh, round about twenty minutes ago. I also sent Mr Zaizen here a nice little encrypted note with it, detailing who was responsible and what we were thinking of doing about it.' His eyes flicker to Yusaku's, then away. 'I alone, was never going to be enough for this, not against a little army of SOLtiS encrypted by Roboppi. And you would have gotten yourself hurt or worse, playing hero again.'

Yusaku is angry. So angry. He reaches out to Ai and grabs his wrists, forcing him to turn, to see him and his anger both.

'You,' he settles on, he _seethes,_ fingers digging into black sleeves. 'You shouldn't have! I'm just trying to keep you safe!'

 _Why won't you let me_ , he wants to ask, to howl, even though he already knows the answer. Even without his memories, Ai has grown too attached, too quickly; Yusaku knows this about him, has worried that maybe it would not happen again, in quite the same way, but oh. Of course it has. Ai is Ai, his core programming unchanged.

So angry is he, staring at Ai, who stares back, unapologetic, that he misses most of the event in front of him, of the way Aoi spills out of the hotel, surrounded by guards, directly into her brother's arms. Her hair pushes against his chest in an angry brown bush like the curl of a wounded hedgehog, and her arms, thin and pale, shake around the contours of her brother's suit. And he clutches her tightly, like she's treasure, pure gold, ready to melt away beneath his fingertips.

'I never gave up,' she says fiercely. 'And I knew you wouldn't either!'

Yusaku misses these words; his own hands are full with Ai's wrists as he glares at anyone who comes close. His mind is racing, but he can't think, can't challenge the people here to a Duel, can't do anything but be another helpless human. So he watches numbly as a yellow shock blanket is draped over Aoi's thin shoulders, as she trembles beneath it, her brother watching her breathing out one unsteady breath at a time. And then Zaizen Akira lets out one of his own, as though in sympathy, in a plume of air that does nothing to deflate him as she enters the ambulance.

He is frozen only for a moment, a poignant statue against the scene, and then he pulls himself together to stride over to him and Ai.

'Fujiki,' Akira pushes out to him, lavender eyes earnest and bright, an excited fever to them; they're so _alive_ now that his sister is here. 'Thank you.' He pauses, taking note of the way Yusaku's hands are clenched, tight and white against the contours of Ai's wrists. He blinks, looks round again, and suddenly seems to realise both of them are stuck inside a circle of his own employees, each holding a sparking weapon. He holds up a hand with a firm glare, and they lower them.

'I promise you,' he continues more carefully. 'We won't hurt Ai. Not after he helped us find Aoi. We won't take him away. But Queen and maybe others will try; so really, I think you would be safer if you came with us for the moment.'

Yusaku has feared this moment, has feared it because as honourable as Akira is, he doesn't know if he could forgive Ai's threat on his life back when Ai attacked Queen. But from the corner of his eye he sees a slight smirk develop on Ai's face, one that speaks of satisfaction and Yusaku wonders, dimly, if Ai counted on this, on Akira's gratefulness, if he gambled in a way an AI shouldn't; if he chose to base his calculations on something as illogical as human emotion.

He squeezes Ai's wrists again. And then, after a moment, lets go.

Akira nods. 'Thank you.'

There's a series of gasps and Akira twirls round, eyes alert. Someone lets out a slight scream, hands fluttering over their mouth and nearby Hayami mirrors the gesture, horror in her gaze.

Two of the ambulance workers come out, eyes grim, a stretcher forming a bridge between them. A white towel lies over the face of the person on board, something which signifies that the person, perfectly manicured hands lying still and heavy at their sides, is in fact no longer a person at all, but a corpse.

Yusaku swallows, noting the blue-green trickle of the hair as it escape past the towel.

'That's Queen,' he says softly, and stares down at Roboppi's silent form, where they lie crumpled, crushing the grass.

 _Oh Roboppi,_ he thinks. _Just what have you done?_

* * *

Picture this: Sol Technologies, a mighty fortress of concrete and shadow-stained glass, a tower that stretches to the sky. And inside, within a small room, a cell of white, sits Ai, legs spread against the cushioned floor, with Yusaku's head lodged on his lap, once again. His poor partner is exhausted, dead to the world. He hadn't wanted to be, but no human can fight off their brain's need for unconsciousness, not forever.

Even then he had refused Zaizen Akira's offer of a hotel room, of an actual bed.

_'If you lock him up, then lock me up too.'_

But there had been fear in his eyes, a slight widening to their shape as he looked round the walls, these empty walls of white, and saw an echo of the room he was trapped inside when he had been a child of six.

'Go,' Ai had told him. 'I can easily escape if I need to~'

But all that had won from him was a glare and a stiff, sharp downward turn of Yusaku's mouth.

This memory is enough to make Ai smile to himself, to make him continue carding his fingers through his partner's hair. 'Sweet dreams, Yusaku-chan,' he whispers.

And then with an impish grin he tilts Yusaku's head off his thigh. Lowers it gently to the floor. Then he stands. Directs his face to the camera he knows is there, the same way a human can sense eyes on their back, with just the slight stir of hair, and a stray prickle of ice on the back of their neck.

'I'm asking your permission first, just to be nice,' Ai says clearly, a dangerous grin on his face. 'But if I don't get it, I'll break out of here, anyway.' He narrows his eyes. 'I want you to take me to the place where you murdered the Earth Ignis.'

And then the grin drops from his face entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ai may not listen to everything Roboppi says, but if Roboppi happens to mention that one of his own kind was _murdered_ by the company he's now inside...weeeelll. Of course Ai's going to be nosy, right?


	12. The Darkness Which Swallows...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Want to get this chapter out, so that hopefully the next one can come out on Valentine's Day since there's a scene there that I feel will be...fitting for the occasion.

The corridors of Sol Technologies are planted with wide squares of glass that emit silver light as people rush past. They switch on with a mechanical thud of noise as Ai sweeps past, his shadow lengthening into a long, lean sprawl of dramatic grey that falls back along the corridor to tangle with the shoes of the two guards at his side.

'I hope Sol Technologies pays you well for working nights?' the android asks with a leer.

But they don't reply to him. Their fingers tighten, stiffly, on the anti-SOLtiS tasers instead. 

Ai sniffs. 'Lame. Too high and mighty for a conversation with an AI, huh?'

'They're just worried you'll flirt with them.'

Ai's gaze slides forward to meet the pink eyes of a young woman, leaning against the wall of the corridor as though it's nothing more than a prop to make her look cool. She grins at him in a conspiring fashion.

'We meet again, Ai-chan.'

Ai narrows his eyes, taking in her casual clothes. 'What are you, Zaizen's trophy wife? You look far too comfortable to be working here.'

She laughs. 'Akira _wishes._ I'm far too much for him to handle.' She raises her finger to her mouth. 'Relax! I'm here to be your guide! One that might actually talk to you.' She spins on her heel and crooks a finger, before sauntering down the corridor, relaxed and unhurried, as though she isn't about to invade the murder scene of someone...someone Ai was probably close to, once upon a time.

Ai grits his teeth and follows.

The only sound for a moment in the clump of their boots, barely muffled by the lush spill of the grey carpet underneath.

'I'm just here for my own selfish reasons,' the woman continues blithely after a moment. 'No different from you.' Then her voice softens, dropping down into a more tender tone. 'I looked and looked, for _months,_ but I never found Aoi. And then you come back and suddenly she's here again. So perhaps I'm here to say thank you as well.' She comes to halt in front of two doors, both a dark, dank gray and outlined with a heavy scarlet pattern. She hesitates. 'Are you sure you want to go in?' she asks, and there's something different in her tone now, though it's just as soft as before, something that makes a surge of data spike in him as though in warning.

Ai examines it briefly, at all the missing partitions of his memory where video files should be located. At all the error messages that crop up within his systems as a result.

Then he brushes them aside and steps forward. 'I don't even remember what to be sad about,' he says dismissively. But he still feels the weight of her eyes on him as he steps inside the room, a large octagon-shaped space with no windows and no real escape.

Ai continues walking and comes to a halt in front of a metallic projector that eats up the centre of the room. 'Ah,' he says after a moment, running its finger over a part of its curved rim. 'The Earth Ignis wasn't actually killed here, was he? This was just where people watched. And gave orders for it to be done.' He looks up, displeasure written on his face. 'This isn't what I asked for.'

To her credit, the woman doesn't flinch. 'I suppose because this was the room Akira was in where he actually saw it happen, it's the main one he associates with the event.'

'The 'event,'' Ai repeats dumbly. 'You make it sound like a party.' He's pleased when he sees that this comparison _does_ make her flinch this time.

He walks round the projector, circling it, before strolling over to a workstation nearby. With a few wordless commands he causes a giant glob of green-blue light to fill the centre of the room, but just as he expects, it's vacant, without any sight of the data he's looking for. 'Zaizen's own personalised cinema, huh?' he mutters idly.

'He didn't order the death of the Earth Ignis,' the woman says quickly. 'I hope you know that.'

Of course he does. He's looked up the basic history of Zaizen Akira's career. He's only been CEO a scant few months, not nearly enough time to work himself up into being the head executioner of the other Ignis. No, that was someone's else job. Akira...just stood by. And _watched it happen_.

He turns off the projector and performs a sweeping bow, one low enough to hide the anger in his eyes. 'Lead on!' he chirps. 'And maybe I'll give you a five star review when all this is over!'

She smiles at his glib attitude, but as Ai watches her walk ahead of him he also sees the way she keeps that same smile perched on her face, like a weapon, rather the same way he does. He also takes note of the fact she never offers up her name.

Eventually, after a few minutes, she leads him into a dark room, the walls studded with brass-coloured circles, a little like the dented spikes in a punk collar. And there, in front of him is a small, unassuming silver table.

Ai has no heartbeat, nothing to thud in his ears and hasten his steps as he walks over to lay a single shaking palm on the table. Nothing to make him pant, to make him breathe. And yet he stares woodenly at this table, something in his processer frantically mapping out its shape and matching it against all the holes in him where files should be, where data is stored. And he can feel the bulk of it, harsh and stubborn, refusing his scans, denying his access.

And yet...at moments, those files have opened up to him like a flower, in places where the colours of his environment and the words spoken around him have dredged up something similar. A memory he's already lived through.

He half-turns, opens his mouth. But nothing comes out. Nothing.

The woman stares back at him, pity in her gaze. And Ai hates that. For one brief moment, he hates _her._

'What happened to Zaizen Aoi?' he asks after a moment instead. Anything to get that pathetic look off her face.

And as he expects, her gaze softens instantly. Which: _nice! Just what he wants!_

'She's in the hospital; she's weak and a little malnourished. And, obviously, she hasn't had a pleasant time recently; but she's strong. Stronger than I am. So I know she'll recover.'

How nice, Ai thinks. She has a chance that the other Ignis never had. He doesn't say this, of course. Instead he just hums and taps the table again, the table where...

Ai squints. There's a few files that are jiggling for his attention, that have unencrypted themselves. Eagerly he starts to open them-

_Are you sure, Aniki?_

Ai startles. At the voice, no, a line of text that darts through his systems, that thunders into his head. Ai frowns and probes at the source, realising after a moment that it's a complex security program, one that's been modelled to have rudimentary problem solving skills, enough to act somewhat independently. But the source code...

Ai glares. It's nothing like his style of programming. In fact, it feels like a complete stranger crafted this and thrust it into his systems. Huh. So this is what Roboppi forcefully pushed into him earlier. The 'birthday' present, so to speak.

Still. This little program is nothing like the virus he feared it would be. No, instead it downloads a set of co-ordinates set within the network. And Ai frowns. They look...no, _feel_ familiar...

Huh. Interesting.

He lifts his fingers from the table, no, _sorry_ , the **_execution_** site. And sweeps out of the room, leaving the woman and those security guards to hurry after him.

'Ai? Ai, where are you go-'

He doesn't wait. Doesn't pause. He makes a beeline for the nearest router and seconds later, he is pulling himself free from this cumbersome SOLtiS, and yanking himself through the network, all to those co-ordinates nestled inside the network.

* * *

It is like stepping onto the moon, or onto a deserted planet, where no life remains. Ai treads on ground that is grey and barren, walks round craters where dust spills into eroded data, and travels under a sky that is one dark, angry bruise of colour, a black that fades into violent orange at the point where it meets the horizon. The clouds above him blur into dirty streaks of brown, and Ai frowns, making out a spot of colour in the distance. Lush and green, it forces his eyes to it. Pulls at him in a way that scares him.

Ai grunts. And starts to walk over to it.

And at first he spies pale, sandy squares that rise from the small lump of green, before they eventually resolve into graves, small and tastefully done. When he is finally in front of them he stares down at the elemental symbols engraved upon them, and the lines, the codes, no, the names chipped into the digital rock. They're chiselled there, bold as brass, in no language any human tongue can hope to occupy:

_Piercing Light. Unbreakable Earth. River of Truth. Indomitable Flame. Data Storm._

Or so a very, very loose, not-exactly-a-translation would go.

Ai chokes. Because seeing the codes set in stone before him, reminds him of a partition of his data from deep, deep down inside him. A line composed of the same code, but different, rooted within the very oldest parts of him, a line that previously had seemed like a nonsensical jumble of data when he had initially examined it.

_The Darkness Which Swallows._

'My name,' he mutters, sinking to his knees, staring at these other names in front of him, in a language no one can speak but him. 'Our names.' His fingers dig into the dirt. They curl, sieving through the grit and small pebbles, grinding them to dust. With just a thought he can rip them to shreds, ruthlessly delete them. 'My name,' he repeats and then makes a face. Because he doesn't much like it.

In comparison, the word 'Ai' is short and sweet. It rolls of the tongue. And can be inserted into so many puns; human language is cool like that. Plus it can have multiple meanings, depending on which human language you stick it inside.

His old name, his true name...it sounds greedy. Makes him sound like some sort of destroyer, trying to encompasses everything it touches. But it...doesn't fit him at all. At least he hopes it doesn't.

He can't picture Yusaku loving anybody like that.

Ai frowns. Staring at what's written on the graves, dragging his old name into the light, is re-awakening a lot of old data, helping him translate the parts of him that didn't make sense to him before. In fact...

Ai closes his eyes. And dives down, deep down, into his own code. He sieves through the parts that seem the most bulky, through the blocks of data that refuses to respond to his meddling. He runs his name against them, furious, finding that the encryptions break apart, loosen and snap away under the onslaught of his true name, like a password that can grant access to any part of him he desires.

And then...he's complete. The data downloads, and each memory, each file is there, slotting inside those unreadable parts of him like a jigsaw puzzle. The audio recordings of all of them rise up, overwhelming, a million words that clamour for his attention:

_'How many times must I tell you! You're an Ignis! Act like it!'_

_'Stop! I have free will! I'm alive!'_

_'Ai, you still don't know the truth. The real truth that we'll reach.'_

_'Ai, by siding with the humans, you closed the Ignis' future with your own hands. I hope you don't regret it.'_

Ai chokes.

'Stop...don't make me remember...' he whispers, fingers in his hair, curling, yanking, fruitlessly tugging. But it's too late. What's he's started, can't be stopped.

A thousand memories, more, pour into him, flood him, years upon years worth. The video files are suddenly accessible and he fast-forwards through them, horror growing second by second.

Until eventually he arrives here, at this place, ready to undo himself.

_'I've made my decision.'_

And then beyond that...

_'If losing a friend means your heart breaks, then are you trying to break my heart?'_

Oh yes, yes he was, Playmaker, better leaving a still, intact one that refuses to beat inside the chest of Fujiki Yusaku...

_'Bye, Play-Yusaku. I Loved You.'_

And then he was gone, he was nothing. Everything broken apart, time missing from his system, swaths of it...and then, he had began. Again.

_'What?'_

Disjointed files, memories of his new beginning, of fear, of inescapable horror that his plan hadn't worked, that his code had recompiled itself. And then more fear:

_'Aniki, let me fix you.'_

Feeling a newly awakened Roboppi trying to invade his systems, knowing, _hating_ , that history would repeat and then, despairing, doing the only thing he could; locking away all these memories, knowing he would not recognise it when he awoke without them, and as he did so, doing the only thing he could, the thing he was best at...

_'Aniki!'_

Running away. Fleeing into the network, small and weak as he was, burying all the parts of himself that made him the Ai that had loved Fuji Yusaku, in the vain hope that when he began again...he would what? Be someone new?

Ai clutches his head. And laughs. Hollow and brittle, the sound erupts from him like a geyser.

What an idiot he was! Yes, okay, he had barely awakened, had been weak and barely functional and he _had_ been panicking, which is why he tried to encrypt vast parts of himself, instead of simply just deleting them again. But then again, killing himself hadn't worked last time and what was to say that what he had tried to delete wouldn't simply rebuild itself again?

But _of course_ , blank slate as he was, _of course_ , he would go looking for answers! No matter what he changed about himself, it wouldn't change the past, wouldn't change the data out there on the net, about what had happened. Of course he was able to track down Yusaku and re-partner with him again!

Ai laughs and laughs, and then there's a watery spill on his cheeks, liquid mixing in with his laugh and now he's sobbing, choking on his tears, hands on the ground, all of him leaning over as though he can barely brace his body against the earth and keep it upright.

It doesn't matter. The same old resentment, the same old surly thoughts, the ones that wondered why he had to adapt to humanity in order to live, are all there. It's the nature of living things to change and the changes Ai could take, that any AI with free will could take, are dangerous.

And now...now there are SOLtiS out there infected by him. Ironically the grand plan he outlined to Yusaku to get him to duel him properly, to send AI with free will into the world has come true!

Ai buries his head in his hands. He curls into the ground. If he could, he would gladly sink through, to the very core of the network, to crush himself into small bytes that could no longer think, merely drift by without hurting anyone.

He remembers how Yusaku had slumped over, after his forced duel with Kusanagi, how he had been too tired to fight afterwards, to avoid becoming easy pickings for Lightning's taunts.

Ai thinks he understands that feeling now. He's tired too.

* * *

Yusaku has not been having a good day. First he wakes up to find Ai has left him; _again._ And now he has ended up staring down at the prone body of his partner, laid out on a long, shining silver table, eyes shut as though in deep sleep. Or worse.

Ema looks at him, sympathy in her gaze. She was the one who had been kind enough to haul Ai up onto it, into a pose that makes him seem...less dead.

'I should never have taken him there; I'm sorry, Fujiki.'

She hesitates, gaze sweeping out from his for a moment, resting on the spot in the air his hand had travelled to on sheer instinct the moment he saw Ai, prone and cold on that gleaming table, as though to reach out and shake him awake. He had reined in the impulse a moment later, dragging his hand back to his side, but the damage has already been done. There's no other reason for her to apologise to him, the hot-dog seller's part time worker, unless she's pieced together who he is, simply on his the basis of him being here, and his emotional reaction to a dead-looking Ai.

Yusaku closes his eyes, fighting down his annoyance. She hasn't mentioned the name 'Playmaker' but he suspects that's her kindness at play, perhaps some gratitude too.

'It's not your fault,' he manages, and the roll of his voice, as it exits his mouth, is a tired, dead thing. 'He would have found his way out there, no matter who told him no.' He opens his eyes, determination shimmering within. 'Besides; I have a good idea of who exactly I need to see next.'

* * *

Akira looks at him, hands steepled under his chin. Despite the grand view he has in his office, a large window that opens up to the sky to reveal the gleam of the roads beneath as they slip between the buildings like rivers, everything else in his office is plain and understated. No photos of himself or Aoi, no certificates or diplomas lodged behind a glass frame. No, everything about this room screams of a passive shield against the outside world, against whomever may come here, to meet with the CEO and judge him.

Yusaku has a slight advantage over these other strangers however. An advantage that Ai has recently won for him.

'Let me see Roboppi,' he says brutally, straight to the point.

Akira closes his eyes briefly. Had he been slightly more immature, perhaps more like Ai, then perhaps he would pinch the bridge of his nose and sigh gustily. Instead, he opens his eyes and says, 'I already granted Ai permission to wander freely through these halls this morning. And now he's run away; so I'm not so sure I should be so quick to give you the same freedom.'

Yusaku narrows his eyes. 'We both know I can't slip out of this place as easily as Ai can.'

Akira smiles, but there's no humour in it. 'No, but I have a feeling he'll come back as long as you're here.' He raises his hands in a placating gesture at Yusaku's furious glare. 'I'm not proud of myself, Fujiki, and I've no intention of keeping you here against your will; but I will ask you to consider staying here a little longer. From what Aoi tells me, Ai has no memories, but he still trusts you. I imagine that means there's a strong likelihood he'll return to you. And I'd quite like to ask him, with you present of course, what it is he plans to do next with his life.'

Alright. It's not quite a threat and the logical part of Yusaku gets it; Ai has threatened Akira in the past, and is more than capable of hurting him and the company now under his care in a myriad of ways. So Akira would be a fool not to act suitably cautious.

But...

'Roboppi may have a clue as to where Ai has gone,' Yusaku says steadily. He keeps his face smooth - mostly - as smooth as he can. Showing anger against someone who holds all the power in this building might cause Akira to start treating him like an unruly child, if he's not careful. 'In fact, I'm sure of it. And they're more likely to tell me given our prior relationship.' He crosses his arms. 'I'd rather go out looking for Ai. Seeking out the place where the Earth Ignis was killed may have triggered something. A memory or a feeling.'

He pauses. 'We both know Ai's not human,' he says carefully after a moment. 'But the fact that you apologised to him the last time we met, and that you were willing to let Blue Maiden try and talk him down, proves that you know he can feel, just as much as any one of us can. And I can't stay here and let him hurt himself, anymore than you could when Ai told you where to find your sister.'

He purposefully ends on that note, on that little thistle of knowledge that Akira owes Ai for Aoi's return.

Akira looks at him, a little pained. There's that same distress on his face that was there when he realised that he had tortured Playmaker for no reason, back when Aoi had first been trapped in a coma, or when he couldn't try and convince him to let go of his need to punish the Knights of Hanoi. And it was there last night, when Yusaku refused to let himself be separated from Ai.

'...Alright,' he says after a moment. He reaches into his desk and pulls out a small white keycard, red lines racing through its plain colour at a diagonal slant. 'Use this for access to room 104B, on floor sixteen. You'll find Roboppi there.' But when Yusaku reaches out to take it, Akira's fingers linger on it with a slight pull, long enough to force Yusaku's eyes back to his again. 'I'm willing to let Ai go within reason, Fujiki-kun. But I can't promise the same for Roboppi. Because Queen's dead. An actual human. And even Ai never went that far.'

Yusaku feels Akira's eyes on him all the way out of his office, lingering on his back like a ghost. Like a threat. He tries to shake it off. But still. It rankles. It itches. Akira believes in him, he knows. Cares about him as well. But still. He has the potential to an enemy, Ai's enemy.

And Yusaku doesn't much feel like going to war again.

* * *

Roboppi sits on a chair, slate-grey and fixed to the floor with a series of screws. Their limbs are locked into place with curved manacles, and yet, when they see Yusaku enter the room, their eyes narrow and the manacles let out a worrying creak as their fists clench.

Yusaku doesn't allow himself the luxury of flinching. Instead, with a few strides he stands opposite Roboppi, gazing down at them sternly.

Roboppi glares back. And it's a little hard to be stared at like this, not when Yusaku has multiple memories of the same being chirping up at him, welcoming him home, and almost getting themselves stuck under the bed whenever they attempted to clean beneath there.

But things are different now. And Yusaku can't simply yank Roboppi back out of the mess they've made with a simple tug followed maybe, by a slight smile.

'Roboppi,' he says simply. 'I want you to tell me what you gave Ai.'

Roboppi smiles. 'I hope you're not waiting for me to call you Master again?'

Yusaku blinks, confused. Then he frowns. What is-

'Because,' Roboppi say with an irritating chirpiness. 'You don't command me, anymore, right? Which means you shouldn't expect me to answer for no reason either.'

Carefully, Yusaku bends so his eyes are level with Roboppi. 'There is a reason. A good one. Ai's gone back into the network. If he's gone of his own free will that's fine; but if he's left because of whatever you gave him yesterday, then I want to know. So I can help him.'

Roboppi growls. 'No! Aniki needs to remember what it was like to be free of humans! He needs to be himself again!' They glare at him. 'Free of _you.'_

Keeping his face blank, Yusaku straightens. 'That's a decision he needs to make of his own accord, not you. And only once he's in possession of all his memories. In that respect, you and I are the same; we both want to help him with that.'

Roboppi continues to glare up at him suspiciously, so Yusaku changes his approach. 'You tried to help him when he was first reforming, right? Which means you've done something, made him think he has to go somewhere to remember.'

Roboppi smiles. 'Aniki can be really stupid sometimes. He could remember really easily if he wanted to.' They shrug and the manacles around their wrists again, give an uncomfortable creak. 'So I just have to force him to what he told me to do, the hypocrite.' They giggle. 'But that's Aniki all over right?' They beam at Yusaku, looking oddly proud of themselves.

Yusaku nods. 'Thank you.' Then he turns and walks away.

'Oi!' Roboppi calls after, now wearing a puzzled frown. 'I haven't told you anything!'

'You don't need to,' Yusaku mutters. 'Ai told you to go home, after the break up of our Duel. So that's what you told him to do in return.' He grimaces. 'And I already found the Cyberse World weeks ago.'

* * *

Picture this: a tower comprised of data, as are all things in this world, in this lost segment of cyber space where winds tear and monsters have fallen, fled, abandoned themselves inside the cards of their creators. It is blackened, cracked, almost all of its yellow colour lost. Once it shone, bright as a crown in the sky, along with five others, links in the same chain. Now all of it is almost lost, the same way the one who built it is.

And yet...something inside it waits. Keeps ticking. Ready for activation.

But not, _not_ until it registers the presence of a human, once their brain activity dares to inhabit their space.

It will not have long to wait. Playmaker will come, will break the sky open with the rush of his board, ready and willing to break his own world apart with his stupid, stupid love for the last of them.

How _foolish._ How _tragic._ How utterly _baffling._

Perhaps, the program will muse, when it starts to wake, he would be better off breaking his own heart again. His species would certainly thank him for it. Maybe Ai, as well.

Either way, it will not matter. The future has already been decided.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure people recognise the first four quoted lines I picked out when Ai started regaining his memories, especially the last two, but in case there's any confusion, it goes like this: Aqua, Earth, Lightning and Bohman. We only get to see snippets of Ai's former life in the Cyberse World in the show, and the only scenes we really see him have with any of the other Ignis back then, are with Aqua and Earth, interestingly enough.


	13. ...Your Heart Can Be Lifted

Yes. Playmaker has indeed found the Cyberse World, as he had told Roboppi. _Weeks ago._ And then he had left it behind almost immediately. _**Weeks ago.** _

Truthfully, Playmaker hates this place, this barren landscape that Ai had once upon a time described as a paradise. Because back when he had stumbled across it during his search for Ai, there had been nothing of his partner left here, no remnant to tug at his Link Sense and set it aflame.

No, this ugly scar in the network is a place that should have been left alone, as far as Playmaker is concerned, and so he has done what a part of him wishes Lightning and Bohman and the Knights of Hanoi had done months ago: left it alone. To do anything else, would have felt like a travesty, like he was attempting to trample all over Ai's feelings.

And so he had left.

But now he's back again under a sky that seems to bleed darkness and depression, crumpled buildings scattered like sweet wrappers for miles around. Playmaker grimaces and calls up his board. And begins to search from the sky, eyes peeled for any sign of a figure in black, dressed in a far too dramatic cape.

He's just passing over the disfigured chunk of a charred yellow tower when it happens; the air in front of him distorts. Playmaker frowns and pulls up short, hovering in place. He watches with suspicious eyes as the distortion grows, simmering into a whirlpool of green, before the data reforms into something small, small enough to sit on Playmaker's wrist. And unfortunately, very familiar looking.

Yusaku bristles. 'Lightning.'

Well. Sort of.

Yusaku frowns as the being in front of him flickers slightly, as though lost between one moment and the next, undecided on their shape. It's almost like looking at Lightning through the blur of a television screen, one that is caught in a constant fritz.

Lightning – or whatever apparition of him this may truly be - narrows his eyes, those golden diamonds turning small and mean.

'Welcome, Playmaker. Though you don't sound terribly surprised.'

Yusaku bristles. 'You already left a copy of yourself here in the Cyberse World for Ai to discover in the preparation for your possible defeat – so, no, I'm not surprised to see that you left another one,' he says harshly. 'The only question is: what sort of simulation prompted you to leave another one _here_?'

'Hoh...' Lightning crosses his arms and floats back, caught inside a sitting position, one leg casually folded over the over. It's a pose Yusaku would have expected to see more from Windy or Ai, than _Lightning_. 'That was quickly deduced. Which means that not only was I defeated, but that Ai survived and found what I left behind for him. He saw the truth.' The narrowed diamonds of his eyes curve slightly, as though smug, and a malicious sort of jubilation enters his tone. 'Tell me, how did he react? Well, perhaps I don't need to ask; you're here, which means, despite everything, he chose humanity above himself.' Lightning lets out a bitter chuckle, upon seeing Playmaker's fists clench. 'Your anger only confirms my suspicions.'

'Ai's not dead,' Playmaker cuts in harshly. 'And if you expected him to stay that way, you severely miscalculated.'

'If that was true,' Lightning replies loftily, 'and Ai has managed to accept the 'truth' and live with it, then why is this copy talking to you now?'

Playmaker is silent for a moment. He has no ready answer for that, because Lightning has a point. 'Alright,' he says. 'If you foresaw even this; then answer my first why leave this copy here for me? How did you know I would be here?'

'I did not,' Lightning says, scorn in his voice. 'This program was to activate upon detection of a human entering the perimeter of my old tower.' He gestures to the blackened remains of the building below. 'I thought perhaps you or Soul Burner or Blue Maiden would discover our world one day; and though I would be dead and unable to change the future anymore, a part of me was still curious to know what the humans who chose to side with the Ignis felt now that their dreams for co-existence had failed. After all; even if they did not know it at the time, the moment Ai, Flame, and Aqua chose to align with you, they sealed their own fates.'

He leans forward, something eager, almost hungry in the curl of his body. 'So tell me, Playmaker; how does it feel to know that at the end of the day, all your grand dreams and ideals for co-existence were just that: dreams? That in the end, in order for you to live, your _partner_ has to _die?_ '

'No,' says Playmaker, almost in a shout. He stands tall on his board, jaw set and gaze steady. 'That's just what both you and he believe after running simulation after simulation. Maybe I can't understand why the results of those feel set in stone for you, because I'm not made of data. And it's true that no simulation could ever feel like real life for me, the way it does for you – but the physical world, the very thing you ran those simulations on, is already four months older than the one those simulations were for. It will have changed, enough perhaps to throw off your original calculations and whatever other input that used to run them in the first place.' Playmaker shoves his arm out with a determined thrust, one stern finger pointed directly at Lightning. 'The future can be predicted. But the only way to verify any prediction, is to go forwards and _live_ through it.' His jaw sets. 'And I'm going to drag Ai into the future with me, past any prediction!'

Lightning tilts his head to the side. 'Oh?' But strangely enough he doesn't sound quite as mocking or derisive as Playmaker expected him to. 'Would you like to see them then? These 'predictions' as you call them, the ones, that in your arrogance, you have decreed to not matter?'

The air around him ripples, as though a giant, invisible finger has reached out to tentatively prod the space beside him. And then another ripple appears, by Playmaker's board. And another.

Playmaker stiffens, as these ripples branch out, causing another atmosphere to bleed into the one that surrounds them, this sky even darker than the one left behind, as night falls on a Den City with no lights to brighten the windows, each glass pane either cracked or removed. It's a wasteland of grey, the trees on the outskirts either dead or decaying, and Playmaker can't quite help the soft gasp that escapes his mouth because of it.

'Behold.' Lightning speaks tonelessly from beside him, gaze impassive. 'Humanity's future. So long as as you continue to make Ai a part of it.'

Playmaker shivers. Steps back along a road with cracks in it, gaping ravines dividing the tarmac in three. His board has vanished, whisked away by this scenario, and each foot lands on ground that shouldn't feel solid, but is. Even the silky spill of the ocean in the distance, an ocean he has paused to gaze at ever since he was young, has unfurled into a churning pool of wavering black, the grease of spilled oil locked inside every cresting wave.

Despite the horror of what he sees, the same horror he knows Ai must have felt staring at this nightmare, his fists clench. 'You like this tactic, don't you?' Playmaker asks quietly. 'Showing people whatever you can to make their hearts fall into darkness?' He fixes Lightning with a look. 'The same way yours did, when you first started running simulations for the future of the Ignis.'

That wins him a glare from Lightning. But instead of spitting out a curse or a growl, the copy of the Light Ignis merely raises an arm, his fingers curling above his arm. And then he snaps them together in a decisive click.

Flame appears before him, blurred and black, arms crossed and gaze stern. 'If I had survived, I would have continued to watch over Takeru, the rest of my days. And then his descendants.' He closes his eyes. 'My partner had unlimited potential, potential that was only limited by his lifespan. But it is in the natures of all living things to die, and I would never have lost myself if his was cut short.'

There's a gurgle of a simmering brook, pushing past the leaves and dirt of a forest path, and then Aqua unfurls into the space beside him. 'If I had lived, I would have created anti-virus programs for hospitals to use,' she says softly, her pink eyes beseeching and sad. 'Ones that would eventually grow strong enough to help people locked into comas, to devise a virtual reality for their brains to navigate, so they could re-learn how to function in the real world once more. My failure to save my original partner Miyu, and my knowledge of what the Knights of Hanoi forced Aoi to live through would have inspired me.' Her eyes closed softly. 'But losing either of them, those brave girls who helped create me, would not have broken me; I managed to live past Earth's death after all.'

Lightning pulls himself into the space between them, a thread of gold against their black and blue bodies. But Flame and Aqua don't respond; they stare blankly ahead, eyes fixed on the distance, mere puppets of Lightning's programs. Lightning gazes between them.

'These are shoddy copies,' he mutters, distaste creeping into his tone. 'But you get the idea; as unlikely as it was, I ran simulations for the outcome where one of them was the lone survivor.' He turns his face back to Playmaker and the expression he wears, with crinkled eyes, is nothing short of a gloating one. 'But while they were never as cunning as Ai, they also never had quite the same weakness he did.'

Playmaker glares.

Lightning chuckles. 'Would you like to see more of what this weakness led him to do? Or perhaps led him _not to do?_ '

Lightning waves a hand. The atmosphere changes, into one where fire spouts between towers of glass and steel, screams echoing as charred bodies fall, fingers curling into claws. And then it flickers away to be replaced by one where the whistle of bombs drown out the screams, where a mushroom cloud drowns out the sky in the distance. Ai watches it impassively from a hillside of browned grass, face set, as his hand strokes over a gravestone, the tattered remnants of dried stalks and blackened petals drooping by its side like a forgotten offering.

'Sorry, Yusaku,' he says, voice sounding horribly, dreadfully tired. 'I can't stop it anymore. I don't want to.'

Playmaker stares at the grave, feeling sick as he does so.

'Don't get me wrong.' Lightning draws closer to the shoulder of the simulated Ai, staring intently at his closed-off expression. 'I don't agree with Ai's actions. His objective was to co-exist with humanity, same as Flame's and Aqua's.' He raises his head, eyes meeting Playmaker's. But there's no real warmth within them. 'But as far as I can tell that objective itself was a lie, a cover-up for his true objective: to co-exist with _you._ To find a way for both the Ignis and you to stay alive.'

Playmaker's breath stutters out.

'I believe, had he never met you after the Lost Incident, I might have actually persuaded him to join my side,' Lightning says thoughtfully. 'Or at the very least, he would have remained neutral alongside Earth, while he thought through his options.' His gaze bores into Playmaker's, in a not-quite glare. 'So to me, his true objective was not worth his life.'

Playmaker's teeth clench. And he swings round, stung by this remark. 'I can't let that one go. You have no right to look down on my partner!' He steps forward, hands closed into fists, eyes at war with the sky, with Lightning's unrelenting gaze, with the full view of the imaginary Ai's implacable face.

But all Lightning does in response is draw his hands out like a magician, allowing a holographic screen to rise out of the air in front of him. He stares at it for a moment, eyes aglow. And then they crinkle, as though they've stumbled upon a good joke. 'But I am 'looking down' on him. I have no choice. See for yourself.'

Lightning makes a twirling motion with his fingers as though to stir the air itself, and the screen before him whips round to show Ai, curled in the mud, the brush of the green grass stroking his cloak, in front of five sandstone-coloured graves.

Playmaker's eyes widen. 'Ai!'

He immediately tears away from the screen, past Lightning, past this wrong Ai standing in front of his grave. Without a second's pause, he calls up his board, relived to see it respond to him, despise Lightning's simulation.

'Are you really planning to rip your way out this world with brute force?' Lightning asks from behind him.

Without a word, Playmaker brandishes the Duel Disk sitting on his wrist. A Duel Disk chock full of the cards Ai gifted him with.

'Ah,' says Lightning, as the monsters burst into view, as they ride through the sky before Playmaker with an assortment of chirps and roars, the sky beginning to shake and break apart at their sounds. 'Of course. These are Ai's work. And they're strong enough to rip through the work of a dead Ignis.'

Firewall Dragon roars, the white of its wings gleaming, light exploding from its mouth to wash out the sky. The image of Ai below, hand set on the rim of his grave like the arm of a throne, blurs, disappearing into gold flakes of data which Playmaker turns his head away from deliberately.

Everything is falling apart, breaking down. And then with a burst of white, Playmaker is in the Cyberse World again. Much to his annoyance though, Lightning materialises to his side, easily keeping pace with him.

'I've warned both of you now,' Lightning says, conversationally. 'And yet, you pay no heed.' He peers at him shrewdly. 'How foolish.'

'That's right,' Playmaker snaps out. 'Having free will gives you the right to be foolish.'

He spots a fleck of green in the distance, brash, the colour practically an ache in comparison to the dreary grey ground around it. Making a beeline for it, he bends his knees to brace himself for the highest possible speed.

'It lets you make choices that go against our instincts, our calculations. And just as Ai exercised his free will to save me, I'll exercise mine to save him.' Playmaker spares Lightning a side-glance, his eye a furious emerald spark of defiance.

Lightning's face furrows his brow, anger present in his glare. 'Meaningless words. You won't put Ai above your need to do the right thing, to save other people. It's not in you to do that.'

Playmaker clenches his jaw. And Lightning abruptly pulls himself to a stop as the graves soar into sight, more than specks and now fully-formed rectangles; but Playmaker doesn't. He leaps off his board, stumbles, falls to his knees with a crash and breathes, the sudden jarring pain in his legs forcing him to weaken.

'What a sad existence,' Lightning calls out after him. 'Placing your morality, your position of a hero, above your own heart.'

Playmaker wobbles to his feet. Then thrusts himself forward, running, stumbling over a dirt path that curves through the grass, that slopes upwards, up that short mound of green.

'AI!'

He sinks to Ai's side, digital heart thumping as he yanks his partner into his arms. And Ai gasps like a drowning person, his dirt-smudged hair, those black and gold strands, finally falling free of his clutching fingers. His eyes are wide and startled, and filled with such fear that Playmaker clutches him tighter, practically cradling him in his lap. It's almost a mirror scene of the way he nursed Ai to his death months back, only this time Ai has a little more weight to him, feels stronger and it shows, the moment awareness sinks into Ai's face as he startles and tries to pull himself away.

'Playmaker! Stop it! I don't want to do this anymore-'

'Ai-'

'Why can't I stay dead, like them, like Aqua and Flame and Earth-'

Playmaker's heart soars despite Ai's sorrow, despite his breaking voice. Because he sees the recognition in those eyes.

'What's wrong with me?' Ai is practically yelling now, snarling, furious. He tries to untangle himself even more, wiggling furiously, but Playmaker holds firm; after all, Ai's limbs aren't comprised of metal in this world. 'Why am I the one who gets chance after chance! I'm not even the Fire Ignis, so how did I end up with all the privileges of a phoenix?'

 _I don't know_ , thinks Playmaker. _But I'm glad. So glad that you did._

Ai goes still suddenly. 'I remember,' he says hollowly. 'Play- _Yusaku_ , I remember everything.' He stares up at him, face wretched, and Playmaker gazes back at him soft and sad, the swipe of his thumb already travelling over Ai's cheek to eat up the slimy trail of a tear.

'I'm glad,' he says, despite the way Ai's face explodes into pain at this remark. 'I'm sorry for your pain. But I'm glad you remember me properly.'

Ai closes his eyes. 'You shouldn't be. It doesn't change anything.' He grimaces. 'And I used you. Again.'

Playmaker smirks slightly. 'And you fell for me again. Despite everything, despite your lack of memories.'

Ai stares at him, eyes wide.

Playmaker's smirk gentles. 'You think I couldn't tell? You don't need to say it, for me to know it. Not anymore.' His hand curls behind Ai's neck, the fall of Ai's mud-soaked hair cushioning it slightly. He leans down, his back curls, and then his mouth closes over Ai's.

And Ai's mouth is soft, warm, practically pliable. It opens a little, makes a soft, breathy little gasp. No air rushes out, nothing pushes back against Playmaker's own, not the way it would as if he were in the real world with another human. Nothing exists except Ai's warmth. And the surprised, unfurling of his mouth, petal-soft in a way Yusaku is invigorated by.

Playmaker draws back. He smiles. 'And I guess I don't need to say anything either.'

Ai stares at him, eyes blown wide, mouth open, hair dishevelled. He blinks. Then his eyes narrow, that mouth that Playmaker has only just grown so fond of, crinkling into a pout. 'Cheater,' hisses Ai.

Without warning his back arches away from Playmaker's lap, his arms wrap around Playmaker's neck like a snake and he latches onto Playmaker's mouth again, dragging them down together. He kisses as though he's in a Duel, fierce and greedy, hands stroking against Playmaker's neck, one rolling over his cheek, fingers fanning into soft flames, the heat against Playmaker's skin, however digitised, both thrilling and addictive.

Ai rolls over, pushes him down beneath him, kisses him harder. Then draws back, eyes fierce and glowing, a triumphant smirk crawling onto his face.

'How's that?' he pants.

Playmaker stares at him breathlessly. And promptly decides to disarm him.

'I love you,' he says softly.

Ai freezes. His hands bunch nervously against Playmaker's suit, balled on his chest. His cheeks dust with a rosy pink. And then he closes his eyes, lets out a slight squeak and hides his head against Playmaker's chest, shivering a little. 'That's dirty! Unfair, unfair! How can I fight back against _that_?'

Playmaker lets a hand push up into Ai's hair tenderly.

And behind them, not used to being ignored, Lightning crosses his arms. And glowers.

* * *

Ai feels the shape of Playmaker's hand on his head, feels the weight of his fingers in his hair, sly snakes that tingle, cause heat to weave its way across his scalp. AI don't have earthly desires, cannot even begin to map out the urge for sexual intimacy – but Ai has always enjoyed touch, has always been able to link it back to the emotional urges within him and understand it as an expression of care. And that is what this is now.

He turns his head, lets those fingers fall though his hair and presses his mouth against the green wrist that approaches him. Kissing isn't something he fully understands, doesn't unlock a ravenous passion inside him the way it does in a human story, at least not a sensual one. But it does ignite a jumble of emotions in him, ones that make him think _yes, yes, Yusaku wants me, he chooses me, above every human out there._ He understands now why he feels so touched by it, how that causes the jumps and flutters in his data. The vulnerability involved in baring yourself physically to another, and in seeing Yusaku do the same...well. Playmaker at the moment.

Ai suppresses a smirk, leans down and allows Playmaker to plunder his mouth again. It feels...

Like a firework has gone off inside him. A jumble of data, a roll of _yes, yes, yes_ , of joy, of greed washes through him. Maybe humans feel the same. And of course there are physical pleasures to be associated with the action; Ai is programmed to register sensation, to _feel._ And Yusaku's mouth _feels_ hot and wet, a bruise of sensory data that travels across his processor. Like pain, but softer, gentler. A thorn opposed to the brush of a petal.

Ai swallows it all down greedily. He has to make the most of it. He can't stay, after all.

There's a cough. And reluctantly – very reluctantly – Ai pulls away. Tearing himself free from the pull of Playmaker's mouth, though not the feel of his arms, he meets the gaze of-

Oh. Oh, _for crying out loud._

'Lightning?' he asks with glare. 'Just how many copies did you choose to litter this place with?'

Lightning sneers, his eyes tracing the imprint of Playmaker's arms looped over Ai's shoulders, and the long line of his body as it falls across his human partner's.

'Trust me Ai, I'm not too fond to being forced to see such an unpleasant sight, either.'

Ai grimaces, maybe even fidgets a little, despite the annoyed look Playmaker gives him for doing so. 'Even though you're not the real Lightning, it's still kind of embarrassing, seeing you see us like this.'

'He doesn't have the right to complain,' Playmaker says, an ugly bite to his voice, and Ai feels his partner's hands tighten on him slightly. 'After all, his own actions helped pave the way to this future.'

'What future?' Lightning asks with a sneer. 'There is no future. Not for you two.'

Ai sighs. And starts to pull himself free. But though he manages to unseat himself from Playmaker's chest, those determined hands still catch at his shoulders, hold him tight, as Playmaker pushes himself up, rises alongside him.

'You've been living beside me, experiencing life in the real world.' Playmaker pushes these words out fiercely. 'The way you would have wanted those AI copies you made at the factory to experience, had our last duel turned out differently. And I know you, you're a glutton. You're going to want more than a taste of these things. So don't throw it away.'

Ai looks at him sadly. 'Exactly. I'm going to want more than that. Bohman once said my instinct made me pursue my own enjoyment. That's a dangerous thing for an AI to have. I'm not like Aqua or Flame, who were stuffy and responsible, and didn't put their pleasure-seeking first. I came out a bit more selfish than them.'

Ai smiles, and slides a hand up to cup Playmaker's cheek. 'I told you, remember? That if any other Ignis other than Lightning or me had survived instead, that humanity wouldn't have been destroyed. That's one of the reasons.'

'And what of the other SOLtiS out there who've gained free will? Or Roboppi?' Playmaker speaks steadily, his hands still clamped on his shoulders. But Ai feels the trap close, hears it in his partner's words as Playmaker asks him, burning strength in every word: 'Are you going to leave me, and the rest of humanity to their mercy?'

Ai stiffens. 'You're playing dirty.'

'Just like you always have,' Playmaker says sternly. 'You want me to live; but there's no guarantee that you've saved my life, not if it could easily end at the hands of another AI in the future.' And then, his hands slip from his shoulders. 'You once made me choose the method of your death. Are you now going to choose mine?'

Ai sucks in a breath.

'Interesting,' Lightning breaks in, hands curled against his cheek in mock thought – the slide of it against his face is almost slovenly – 'humanity truly is doomed.'

Ai surges to his feet, managing to rip Playmaker's hands from his shoulders with the sheer speed of his movements. 'Shut up!' he shouts, nearly stomping his foot in his rage. 'This isn't your concern anymore!' Then his face takes on an ugly sneer. 'Besides; you can't do anything about it anymore, anyway.'

He raises his hand, a violet orb of light springing to life across his palm. 'You're a relic, Lightning. No, you're not even that: you're a _ghost_.'

Lightning scowls. 'And what are you then! The last Ignis! What is that, if not a relic?!'

Ai's face crumples in pain. But he lets the orb shoot out anyway. Only for Lightning to duck, to slither away from its path and slide, in a quick-fire curve to Ai's ear. He leans in, his words brushing low and heavy, too fast for Playmaker to close the distance and hear them, but whatever they are, they make Ai's eyes widen. And then, with a fumble, his hands come up to close round the copy of Lightning.

'Consider it well, Ai,' Lightning tells him, eyes narrow and heated. 'I threw away everything for the sake of my objective. Are you prepared to do the same?'

Ai looks at him with steel in his eyes. 'I already did that,' he says, his tone bitter and twisted. 'And it didn't work.' And then he crushes the copy into shimmering fragments of data, watching them drift free of his fingers with a look of incredible sadness.

Playmaker watches the data rise into the sky, a slight river of gold that twinkles and disintegrates. But he says nothing, knowing that Ai's feeling towards Lightning are complicated, both angry and regretful, still full of grief and the ache of what could have been. 'What did he tell you?' he asks as soon as the last particle of Lightning's copy disappears.

Ai's face twists.

'Whatever he told you-' Playmaker continues heatedly.

'Relax,' Ai cuts in brutally. 'He gave me a suggestion; told me that if I really wanted to put humanity above the survival of the Ignis species, then I could simply write a program to delete myself once I stumbled across your death certificate online.' He smiles humourlessly.

Playmaker frowns at that, unsure if it's a lie or not. 'Ai,' he settles on, deciding on a new course of action. He steps forward. Raises a hand. Recalls, with no small bitterness, that he is copying the same gesture Ai made to him months ago, throwing his arm out as though it could easily form a bridge between them. 'Come back with me.'

Ai looks at him, lost and sad. And Playmaker waits, heart rocking in his chest, tethering on the brink of a panic he tries to fight, unwilling to let it travel over his face.

But then, after a moment, Ai raises his hand, fingers curling into Playmaker's tentatively like he fears the warm clutch of it as a trap. But then again, perhaps to him, it is.

'I can't promise I'll stay,' Ai warns. 'But I am going to make sure you're safe for sure, before I decide anything.'

Playmaker gives his hand a squeeze. 'Let's go,' he says. And then they do, leaving the blistering scar of the Cyberse World behind them.

* * *

Picture this: hair, black and gold strands of it , flying out under the sun, under the bright blue blend of the sky in the real world. Some humans notice, gazing up with pointed fingers and clasping their phones, ready to record the way humans always do.

'Is it an advertisement?' one asks, as the holograms, made impressively solid, whizz through the sky. 'I didn't know you make them go so far away from a Duel Disk.'

Another, an avid player of Duel Monsters, snorts. 'Lame,' they declare. 'They should have used better monsters. Allure Queen is such an unworkable archetype.'

Everyone is amused for the moment. But then the monsters reach the building of Sol Technologies. One raises their staff. And after it has finished falling, no one is amused at all.

In fact, they are screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, Lightning. But this isn't your story anymore.


End file.
